Sometimes Things End Right
by PiperElizabethMcLean
Summary: Annabeth's sister Mal is absolutely and utterly perfect. She's beautiful, talented, has an equally perfect boyfriend, and did I mention is incredibly famous? Once Annabeth moves into her father's home in LA, she begins to fall for Mal's boyfriend, Percy... will she be able to hold back her attraction for him? And will he ever keep his eyes off of her? Does she want him to? *Revised
1. Sometimes You Meet Somebody New

Sometimes Things End Right

Chapter 1

Annabeth

My suitcase wobbled behind me as I hurried through the airport. My cup of Dr. Pepper shook in my hand as I quickly dodged the people around me. My ice had melted a while ago, and honestly, I don't even know why I still held the room-temperature cup of soda; probably because it had cost so much. My cellphone was in between my cup and my hand, and my head whipped back and forth wildly, looking for which signs I was supposed to follow for my boarding gate.

"Hey, watch it," An older man grumbled at me as I swerved around him and his elderly wife. I muttered an apology and continued forward, keeping my eyes out for the correct boarding gate.

My gate came quicker than I anticipated. There was a long line of people, and my eyes were still roaming the signs hanging from the ceiling. I didn't even see the line of people.

And just with my luck, my piece of crap suitcase rolled onto its side as soon as I ran into somebody in line. The wheel must have popped off on contact, too, because my suitcase made a loud _thump_ , and the whole thing skidded. I tried to move quickly, but of course I spilled the cup of lukewarm soda.

I bit my lip and tried my absolute hardest not to scream in frustration. The line of people I had run into was a flurry of groaning faces, annoyed eye rolls, and just movement. I scrambled to collect my cell phone and my luggage while random hands reached all around me to help pick up my scattered possessions.

"I am so sorry," I muttered, dabbing my shirttail at my drenched phone. I really, really wanted to scream. I clicked the home button on my phone hoping it would turn on, but even my own phone wasn't on my side.

It seemed like nothing was on my side today.

"-soda everywhere," A voice above me was growling. I grabbed my boarding pass from the ground and stood up, swiping at my knees.

My first thought was that the voice was right. There was soda everywhere. The floor was covered in puddles of Dr. Pepper, and at least three people were covered in soda. One woman was shaking her head and walking towards the bathroom, a little girl with splashes of soda was being pulled to the side by her mother, and a guy still stood above me, grumbling into his phone about his shirt being ruined by soda.

My second thought was just how gorgeous the guy standing in front of me was. He was tall, stood above me, and wore a plain gray t-shirt with a giant splash of Dr. Pepper on the front of it. His hair was dark, almost black, and he had on black sweatpants with another giant splash of soda to match the one on his shirt. When I finally made eye contact with him, he looked absolutely pissed.

"Look, I have to go," He snapped into his phone while still staring right at me, "I'll call you when we land."

The guy didn't even wait for whoever was on the phone to reply. He ended the call and shoved his phone into his sweatpants' pocket and turned his attention to his soaked shirt.

"I'm so sorry," I said, turning my phone in my hand. "My suitcase's wheel popped off, and I ran into the line-,"

"Yeah, I was there," He snorted. He shook his head and pulled at his shirt's wet spot and groaned. "I need to change. I can't get on the flight like this."

"I'm really sorry," I apologized again. Probably because I didn't know what else to say to the guy. He was gorgeous, and though my accident hadn't put any damper on his looks, I still had nothing else to say to him. "It was an accident."

His head snapped up from looking down at his shirt to make eye contact with me again. His eyes were super green, and framed by dark lashes. His eyebrows came together in thought as he looked at me. He gave me a weird look for a moment, and I stood there awkwardly.

I felt so weird. I didn't know what to say. I was at a loss for words; I was in an airport I wasn't used to, I had spilled soda everywhere, and I was dealing with a guy I had never met before. On top of all of this, the insanely attractive guy was coming off as a jerk.

"Look, just… don't worry about it," He sighed. "I'm going to change, and you're going to pick up your stuff before it all gets trampled, and then we'll both go on our way and forget about it."

His words probably should have been a comfort, or should have been some kind of relief, because at least he wanted to forget about it and at least he didn't want to, I don't know, sue me or something, but it wasn't a comfort or a relief. I felt even more awkward, and my face was even more hot than before. I felt my ears grow warmer, and I'm sure my cheeks were blood red. I bit my lip and nodded, though, because though I was getting agitated with him, I would rather have let it go than continue to apologize over and over to this guy who was a 80% jerk and a 20% insanely attractive model sent from the goddess Aphrodite to bless whoever looked at him.

And I'm not even exaggerating. This guy had gorgeous eyes, a breathtaking jawline, and the kind of 5-o'clock shadow that would leave a girl panting for fresh air. I had only seen guys like him, guys with broad shoulders, muscular arms, and a lean build on movies, or in magazines. This guy was gorgeous. Even his voice was attractive; it was deep and kind of scratchy, but in the good way. His mouth rested into a smirk, and his deep green eyes seemed to analyze me through and through.

He was overly attractive. Like, he probably shouldn't have even been allowed in public just because he probably drove some ladies mad.

Briefly I wondered what his parents looked like. His mother had to be some kind of beautiful angel to have birthed somebody like him… and his father! His father had to be somebody stunning, too. My brain continued to wander until I realized the guy was backing away and giving me another weird look.

Realizing I had completely zoned out while he was talking to me, I flushed even more. He turned around completely and headed towards the men's room, leaving me to pick up the rest of my things I had dropped in my haste to pick everything up- my carry-on backpack, the broken wheel to my suitcase, and the cup that had held my soda. The people around me that had not been in the splash zone were over my accident by now, and were talking amongst themselves like I wasn't even there anymore.

I had to carry my suitcase to the back of the line of the boarding gate because since the wheel had popped off, the suitcase thumped around even more and the screw that had held the whole thing together scraped across the ground. I groaned and made my way to the back, balancing my useless phone under my arm while holding my suitcase up with my arms.

Thankfully the line started moving around the time I finally made it to the back of the line. The woman with her child that I had splashed was back in line, and seemed to forget all about the accident. Her child babbled to who must have been the father, and the woman who had walked away shaking her head was handing her boarding pass over to the man scanning tickets at the front of the line. I craned my neck to look for the Absolutely Gorgeous Guy, but I couldn't spot him.

The line moved forward and I struggled with my suitcase, but I didn't expect anybody to help. I was in the great airport of Huston, Texas, and everybody seemed to be minding their own business. The people in line were all headed to Los Angeles, and unlike my home in Mississippi, nobody cared if you were a small-ish female holding a giant, broken suitcase. Nobody seemed to be as hospitable as Mississippi, especially the too-busy passengers around me.

When I finally made it to the front of the line, I handed the attendant my boarding pass while trying my hardest to balance the suitcase in my arms. This didn't faze him, either. The guy gave me a board wave of his hand and sent me towards the long hallway leading to the airplane. I rolled my eyes and followed the bustling passengers in front of me.

By the time I made it to my seat I had momentarily forgotten about Absolutely Gorgeous Guy. I knew I was in seat 21AA, next to the window. My broken suitcase slid perfectly into the overhead compartment, and I seemed to be able to finally breathe when I sat down in my seat. I even did the over-dramatic eye close and sigh.

My relief didn't last long, though. Since the day hadn't been hectic and crazy enough, it seemed, it needed to be a little more dramatic.

I say that with the most sarcasm you could ever imagine.

I felt a bag drop next to me, and I peeked one eye open. An older lady with the biggest purse you could ever imagine was standing in the middle of the aisle, staring right at me.

"Excuse me, little lady," She smiled wobbly and held out a boarding pass stub to me, "I think you may have the wrong seat. My ticket says seat 21A and you're in my seat."

I took the pass from her wrinkly hand and peered at it. Then, I picked up mine and compared the two. "No, ma'am, this seat is 21AA, and your pass says 21A. That means you're across the aisle."

She frowned and read her ticket again. I squirmed in my seat, uncomfortable again. "My grandson will be here any moment. He'll be able to figure this out for us."

"Wait, ma'am, all you have to do is read it. Your seat is across there-,"

"Sorry, Grandma, I was late getting on because I was stuck in line in the bathroom," I was cut off by the same deep, scratchy voice that had pretty much been imprinted in my brain. "I had to dig through my carry-on just to find this shirt because some idiot dumped their drink on me and my shirt had some kind of sticky crap all over it…"

My mouth fell open as the guy trailed off, finally noticing me sitting in the row of seats. His eyebrows furrowed like before, and he crossed his arms over his chest. He had changed into a black t-shirt with a pocket on the chest, and somehow the dark color made him look even more appealing than before. I closed my mouth and glared at him.

"What? Are you here to pour more soda on me?" The guy smirked. I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest, too.

"Okay, first of all, it was an _accident_ ," I snapped, "And second, your grandmother seems to be confused. She thinks I stole her seat."

"Why did you steal my grandmother's seat?" He raised an eyebrow at me. I raised my eyebrows back at him, ready to snap back, but he reached forward and took the boarding pass stub out of my hands. I was too surprised by literally everything going on- the grandmother, who had lost interest in our exchange and was now chatting with a woman on the row behind her, Absolutely Gorgeous Guy who had seemingly materialized out of nowhere to accuse me of stealing an old woman's seat and to complain about his shirt again, and the flight attendants that were walking up and down the aisle, shooing everybody to their seats- to even comprehend that he had just snatched the ticket out of my hand.

"This says you are in seat 21AA," Absolutely Gorgeous Guy stated and handed me my ticket back. "We're in 21A and 21BB."

"That's what I said," I nodded, feeling relieved that this was clearing up quicker than the t-shirt and soda ordeal had, "Your grandmother thought that I took her seat-,"

"Now you're accusing my grandmother of stealing your seat?" He raised an eyebrow at me.

Wait, what? I wasn't accusing him of anything.

"What? No! She was just confused-," I began to explain, leaning forward in my seat and using my hands to begin my explanation.

"Look, she's elderly," The guy interrupted and said, looking right in my eyes and smirking, "She gets confused sometimes, just drop it. You don't have to get upset because she got mixed up."

"I'm not upset!" I said, feeling my eyebrows hit the roof. Who was he to accuse me of getting upset?! He was turning the tables now.

"It sounds like you are," He pointed out. He reached for the giant purse the grandmother had plopped onto the seat next to me and handed it to his grandmother who was still chatting behind him. "I mean, it's not like she dumped an extra-large cup of sticky soda on you or anything."

My mouth fell open again. He really just said that.

He _really_ just said that.

"Oh you really want to go there," I narrowed my eyes, ready to let him have it. I was pissed now. He was not only turning tables on me, acting like a jerk about the shirt, but now he was making fun of the situation. I was livid. I was opening my mouth to start snapping back at him when he laughed.

It was a laugh great enough to send tingles to my tummy. It was deep, throaty like his voice, and had my subconscious on her tippy toes and craning her head, using her hand to cup her ear to hear more. His eyes danced with delight, and the green seemed to turn more of a light, sea-ish color.

So you know how some shows and movies have the little devil on one shoulder, and an angel on the other? Yeah, well my subconscious is kind of like that, except my actual brain, the decision-making part and also the main ruler, is more of the "angel." There isn't an actual angel, but more like the Let's-Look-At-The-Logical/Rational-Side-Of-Things, or the That's-Stupid-Let's-Not-Do-That angel. The other part of me, my "devil" subconscious, liked to do stupid stuff and blame it on anybody and everybody else that she could. I liked to think of her as the underdog, because thankfully she didn't get much rule. She was the Oh-Look-There's-A-Squirrel type, or the Act-Now-Apologize-Later type. I liked to think of my "angel" as being my actual conscious, and my "devil" as being just the subconscious, with a major emphasis on _sub_.

Right now my subconscious, the traitorous bitch that she was, was holding a notebook and trying to make a list of ways to make him laugh, just to hear it all over again.

"Chill," He told me, sliding into the seat next to me. "It was a joke."

I realized he planned on sitting there next to me. "What are you doing?" I asked as he messed with the seatbelt.

I mean, it was obvious what he was doing, but still. He was buckling up. He had said that his seats were 21A and 21BB. That meant that somebody- his grandmother- got the seat next to the window on the opposite side of me, and somebody- obviously, him- got the seat next to me. What prompted him to be the one to take 21BB, I don't know, but it made my subconscious happy. She was sitting pretty in her own airplane seat, her legs crossed and batting her eyes.

"I mean, I'm not milking cows, am I?" He smirked, "I'm taking my seat. Why? What are _you_ doing?"

"Not sitting by _you_ , that's what I'm _not_ doing," I snapped, "Why do you even want to sit by me, anyways? Don't you hate me?"

I mean, he acted like he did, anyway.

"Why would I hate you?" He chuckled. My subconscious giggled back at him and batted her eyelashes even more. "It was just a drink, and it's just a seat. It was just a misunderstanding."

"Okay, but you told your grandma that 'some idiot,' AKA me, spilled a drink on you. That kind of lead me to believe that you hated me. Then you made a big deal about me 'stealing from your grandma,' even though I didn't... Oh! And you were a total jerk about your shirt earlier." I babbled, crossing my legs and crossing my arms over my chest tighter. "That's why you would hate me."

"You're so over-dramatic," He muttered, shaking his head and rubbing his temples with his fingertips. "I was joking about the seat, and I don't really care about the shirt. It was an accident."

"Then why were you a jerk about it at first?" I hissed as the flight attendants walked up and down the aisle explaining directions and exits and whatever. "You didn't have to be a jerk."

"I was pissed at first," Absolutely Gorgeous Guy rolled his eyes at me. I stared back at him, wondering momentarily how they could get so green. My conscious wanted to know the genetic part of him, and what it took to get eyes that green. She had a blackboard up and was working out Punnet Squares, her hair pulled back with two pencils instead of clips, and her glasses pushed up onto her nose. My subconscious was still sitting pretty, giving Absolutely Gorgeous Guy 100% of her attention. "I was pissed, but I mean, who wouldn't be? We were in a crazy busy airport- like, the second most busiest airport in the United States- and you ran into me. I was on the phone with my girlfriend who wasn't in the greatest mood, and I didn't exactly have time to go and change before boarding. It was just a reaction. Everything is okay, now, though, and I'm sorry for being a jerk."

So, two things were going through my mind as he talked:

My subconscious was checking him out as he spoke (holy crap, his lips were practically _sculpted_ by the gods of Olympus) and she had decided that she was most definitely going to have any and all of his babies if he ever asked. Also: did he just say _girlfriend_?!

My conscious was calculating if he was lying and if he was, what was he up to? Why would he suddenly decide to stop being a jerk and start being nice about it all? I mean, I guess he did have a point; I'd probably be pissed, too. But what made him realize he needed to get over himself? I totally understood why he'd be mad, and I guess why he'd act like a jerk about it, but was he being nice now because he was a nice guy or was he being nice because I called him out on it?

"Yeah, I guess," I said carefully, uncrossing my arms. I guess there was no need to be so defensive anymore. I was probably overreacting, anyway.

My mind wandered to my mother, who always insisted that I overreacted. Oddly enough, though, everybody said we were just alike.

I slapped my forehead and groaned. "Oh, crap!" I moaned, reaching for my useless, sticky cellphone. Absolutely Gorgeous Guy quirked an eyebrow at me in question. "I was supposed to call my mom when I got to the gate," I explained.

That never happened, though, because I had run into the line, and my wheel had popped off, and my drink had spilt everywhere…

"I'd say do it now but we aren't supposed to use electronics," He shrugged, "Just call her when you get off the plane."

"I was supposed to call her at the gate so she could call my dad for me," I muttered, "To tell him when I was landing and whatever."

"Why couldn't you call him yourself?" The guy asked, pulling out his own phone from his sweatpants pocket. He still wore the same sweatpants he had on earlier, but it looked like he had dabbed at the soda spot enough that it had almost disappeared. I had to look away, though, because I was staring at the spot for too long, and I was worried it would look like I was staring at his crotch.

My subconscious winked.

"Why couldn't I call my dad?" I snorted, "That's a complicated story."

"I mean," Absolutely Gorgeous Guy looked around the plane, "We aren't going anywhere for a little bit."

He was right. Our flight was about three hours and forty five minutes. We had plenty of time for me to explain my complicated story about my father.

Still, it felt like it would take _ages_ to explain what was going on in my family.

And on top of all of this, I barely knew the guy. Heck, I didn't even know the guy's name!

"I don't even know you," I argued, but my argument was pretty weak. If we were being honest, I would probably tell this guy anything. I was so attracted to him that if he told me to jump off this plane with him, I probably would.

Okay, I probably _wouldn't_ , but I would probably consider it.

My subconscious would consider it. She was already thinking about running away with him to Vegas or something while my conscious rolled her eyes.

"I don't know about you, but if it were me that would be just another reason to talk about it," Absolutely Gorgeous Guy said. "You'll never see me again. Why not just vent about whatever it is?"

"I don't know," I shrugged. "Even if I wanted to I wouldn't know where to start."

"Okay…" He trailed off, looking thoughtful. "How about you start with where you're going and why?"

"Oh," I sighed, "I guess that answer is easy… even though it's kind of complicated…"

He rolled his eyes at me. "It doesn't have to be complicated."

"But it is," I argued, "You don't even get it."

"Then tell me," He offered, "I'll listen."

I looked at him and thought. The guy was laid back, it seemed. It seemed like I could really tell him anything- and it was a weird feeling. My subconscious was yanking out her giant, dictionary-sized book of problems, settling herself into her comfortable armchair, and was preparing herself to read out loud. Meanwhile, my conscious was shaking her head and mouthing NO.

I sighed and yanked on one of my curls that had fallen from my ponytail. What would I even tell this guy? I guess he was right, I would never see him again...

"How about you tell me about your girlfriend," I stalled, "Why wasn't she in a good mood? Was she pissed at you for something?"

Absolutely Gorgeous Guy was surprised. His eyes widened for a moment before he smirked at me. "That kind of took me off guard. Why do you want to know about my girlfriend?"

I shrugged. "Why do you want to know about my dad?"

"Touché," He laughed. My tummy tingled at his laugh again, and I felt my lips turn up softly. His laugh made me want to smile. "Okay. So if I tell you about her, will you tell me about him?"

"Yeah," I nodded. I would probably tell him whatever he wanted to know.

My conscious snorted and shook her head at me. She thought I was pathetic.

"So… my girlfriend. If you even wanna call her that," He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms behind his head. I looked over his shoulder and noticed his grandmother was asleep in her chair beside the window. "We haven't been having the greatest time."

"Oh, really?" I asked. Who wouldn't be having the greatest time with him? He was gorgeous. And he seemed to be kind of genuine… though he did act like a jerk when he was pissed off. I wondered if he was somebody different with whoever she was.

"We're on and off a lot," Absolutely Gorgeous Guy explained, "Every time we're off we want to be back on, and every time we're on we want to be off. It's confusing and it's like whiplash, you know? I never know what she wants or what she means."

"Why don't you work out when you're together?" I asked. I really wanted to know. I was kind of interested, and my subconscious was wondering if she could take over for the mystery girlfriend.

"The first time we were together it was great. We were like best friends. It was easy to talk to her, and we connected, you know?" He said, "We were together for about two years. She was there for me when my grandfather died, and I was there for her throughout her parent's divorce. We worked well together, both physically and mentally."

"Then what happened?" I asked, "If everything was going well what made it stop?"  
"She cheated on me," Absolutely Gorgeous Guy answered bitterly and with a frown. "I got really busy with work and whatever and I guess I kind of grew apart from her. It was hard to keep up a relationship over text; she was working in Los Angeles and I was working in other states like New York. She says she got lonely, but I don't know. If you love somebody you don't think about somebody else, right?"

I nodded quietly. "My dad cheated on my mom."

"Ouch," He muttered. "That's rough."

"My parents don't know that I know," I sighed, getting comfortable in my chair. "They think that I think they fell out of love and just divorced. When it happened I was like in the eighth grade, and that's what they told me, anyway. I found out because I overheard their conversation late one night or whatever. My dad moved off with his mistress and they have their own family now."

"Is that why you're going to Los Angeles?" He asked, "To see your dad and his family?"

"Yeah," I nodded, "To see my dad and his new family. He's finally marrying the mistress, I think. He hasn't come right out and said it yet but that's what it looks like, anyway."

I wasn't telling the guy the whole truth, but I didn't feel like I had to. I mean, my story pretty much summed up how I felt about everything. I didn't need to dive into deeper, hurtful details. I swallowed and looked up into the guy's eyes.

"That sucks," The guy said. "My girlfriend was sort of going through the same thing, but I think the story was a lot different."

"Yeah, well, your girlfriend is a bitch for cheating on you," I muttered, "Just because you moved away…"

"Yeah, well, right now we're off," He said, "We got into it a couple of weeks ago because she did some stupid crap."

"And you're going to take her back?" I asked him. "Why? If you just said it never works why do you keep trying?"

"I don't know," He shrugged. "I like to think that sometimes things end right, you know? Not everything has to end badly. I don't like the idea of fighting with her and then just leaving it at that. She was my best friend at one point, you know? She was my first everything."

I nodded, but I guess I couldn't understand him 100%. I had never had somebody be my first everything. I decided I would tell him this; I mean, we were already sharing personal things and I felt like he was waiting for me to take my turn.

"I've never had a first 'everything,'" I said, "I mean, I've had a first boyfriend or whatever, a first date, and a first kiss and all of that, but it wasn't with the same guy. I never really had a guy stick around long enough for all of that."

He looked at me quietly with another weird look on his face. Almost like he was thinking something, or he couldn't remember something… like he couldn't grasp what he was thinking…

"She was my first girlfriend, prom date, and all of that," He said. "We met when I was like nineteen. She was still in high school, and I was homeschooled as a kid so I never went to prom. I got to go with her."

"That's crazy," I said with a tiny smile. "You dated her after that?"

"Yeah," He nodded, "We saw each other for a little while but she became my official girlfriend at the age of twenty. We dated for two years and we've done this weird off and on thing for about a year now."

That was a long freaking time to try and try again on a relationship. I admired his commitment and his relentless dedication to her, even if he was off and on all the time.

"And you guys still haven't figured it out," I said, "That's kind of weird, don't you think?"

"I guess," He said. "I don't know. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. I mean, I want things to end right, but I also don't know if I even want to try anymore. It seems like no matter how many times we try again, there's always some kind of mistrust and hurt involved. She hurt me when she cheated on me, and ever since it has felt like she's only being nice to me because she's trying to make up for that. Then there are times where I get so annoyed with her that I can't even think straight. That's usually about the time we call it off."

"Have you ever thought about quitting completely?" I asked him.

"Sometimes I think about it," He answered, looking at me. Our eyes connected and I felt my tummy tingle again. My subconscious was fanning herself with a little fan and pursing her lips as if she was waiting for a kiss. My conscious was nowhere to be found. "I think about leaving her and starting over with somebody new."

Somebody new? My eyes flicked to his beautifully sculpted lips. Suddenly we felt so close. I could see more details of his face; his eyebrows were almost on the bushy side, he had a few freckles across his nose, and his eyes were so green it was like they reflected the ocean. His cheekbones were just as perfectly sculpted as his lips were, and the eyelashes framing his beautiful green eyes were thick and black.

I had never noticed so many details about somebody before. My subconscious was jotting down as many details about this guy as possible in her diary, trying her hardest to memorize every detail about this beautiful man. This was probably the last time I would be this close to somebody this gorgeous…

I studied his freckles, and the way they splayed across the bridge of his nose, like he had spent time in the sun. His skin was tan, he smelled kind of like sunshine and soap, a hint of something I couldn't really tell, and his breath was hot, tingling…

It was almost like I wasn't paying attention, but I really was. I was paying way too much attention, if that was possible. I was watching him, and before I even knew it, his breath was fanning over me, and his perfectly sculpted lips were on mine.

And it was kind of a surprise, because like I said, it was almost like I wasn't paying attention. His lips were kind of questioning, and light, but he moved his hand to touch my face.

I almost didn't react because I was so surprised. Just when I pursed my lips to kiss him back, though, he pulled away.

My subconscious was pissed. She stomped her foot and crossed her arms across her chest and growled angrily.

"What?" I touched my fingertips to my lips. Despite my subconscious batting her eyes and prepping herself for another kiss, I was still puzzled. My conscious was nowhere to be found.

"What?" He replied, leaning back in his seat. He no longer looked cool and calm, he looked a little off…

"Why did you kiss me?" I asked, rubbing my lips a little harder.

Did that just happen?

"I'm sorry," He breathed, closing his eyes. "I shouldn't have. I mean we were just getting really personal, and you were there, and I guess it was just a comfort from what we were talking about…"

I narrowed my eyes, wondering where my conscious was. She'd have something to say about this. She'd see the logical part of this.

He had a girlfriend. He was just telling me about her. They had history.

But that wasn't stopping my subconscious from trying to hop into this guy's lap and straddle him.

It also didn't stop me from leaning forward and kissing him again.

I placed one hand on his chest and one hand behind his neck and pressed my lips to his.

The difference between this kiss and the last one was surreal. The first kiss wasn't planned, was swift and light, and it was almost barely there. The second one, though…

It was hot.

I felt his lips press back on mine, and the pressure was perfectly even between us. I was actually feeling him this time; the first time I hadn't kissed back before it was over. The second time, though, we were evenly matched and kissing at the same pace.

And it was awesome. His hand came up to play with the ends of my ponytail, and then he pulled me closer by splaying his hand across my lower back.

I was coming out of my seat just to get closer. It was like he was intoxicating! His breath was warm, but not the nasty kind of warm that I had experienced with my first kiss in high school.

And when he sighed into the kiss! It was like my knees were weak. When he sighed, his mouth sort of opened into the kiss, and I could taste him.

It was even greater than before. He tasted kind of sugary, like he had eaten something sweet. My tongue inched out, curious, and swept across his bottom lip.

He seemed to like that because he made a little noise, almost like he was groaning. It was the hottest sound I had ever heard.

It made me want more. Our lips moved in sync, and it was so easy to just move my fingers into his dark hair. His hair curled a little around his ears and at the nape of his neck, and it was just so easy to play with the little locks.

And he liked that, too. He groaned again, making the same sound as before, and making my tummy tingle again. My subconscious was loving it, and was adding playing with hair to her list of things to do over and over again, right under making him laugh.

When he groaned, he pulled my closer, moving his hand up and down my spine. I curled my fingers in his hair and angled my head, kissing him deeper. We moved in sync, quietly kissing. It was wonderful, and I had never felt somebody kiss me so well before.

When I was fourteen I had my first kiss. I kissed a guy who took me to the homecoming dance, and the very next day he told me he didn't like me "like that." I was crushed, of course. I thought that because we had kissed, we were supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend or whatever. I was wrong.

When I was fifteen I had my first boyfriend. We kissed a lot, and we did all the couple-y stuff, but he had _never_ kissed me the way Absolutely Gorgeous Guy was kissing me.

I heard the squealing of the cart, but I guess I didn't really put two-and-two together. I didn't realize the flight attendant was coming closer. I mean, my subconscious was too caught up in Absolutely Gorgeous Guy, and my conscious was nowhere to be found. I was 100% engaged in this guy, and I never noticed the flight attendant until she was standing right in front of us.

And she cleared her throat loudly to get our attention. The guy jerked back, and I did pretty much the same. Immediately I felt my face grow hot and my eyes grow wide. The flight attendant did not look happy.

Absolutely Gorgeous Guy, though, was smirking and biting his lip to keep from laughing.

"I am so sorry," I blurted, shaking my head and covering my mouth with my hand.

The flight attendant rolled her eyes and didn't even bother to offer drinks to either of us before rolling down the aisle, shaking her head.

As soon as she was out of earshot, I turned to Absolutely Gorgeous Guy. As soon as we made eye contact we both started laughing.

"Oh my gosh," I giggled, leaning over with laughter. "I can't believe that just-,"

"-happened." He nodded, his eyebrows drawn together and a huge smile on his face. "I can honestly say that has never happened to me before."

"That was so awkward!" I said, turning around and peeking over my seat for the flight attendant.

"Well, we should be landing soon, so I guess we don't have to worry about it for long. We won't ever see her again." He smirked.

Suddenly I felt my stomach dip. We would be landing soon, and while it was true that we would never see the flight attendant again, it was also true that I would never see _him_ again.

I frowned. I was suddenly uncomfortable. Why had I kissed him back? Why had he kissed me? He had a girlfriend- granted, their relationship was apparently pretty much dead- and I had a new life I was beginning with my father and his family. I would never see this guy again.

And for some reason it made me incredibly sad.

He was somebody special, I could tell. He was special enough to make my conscious go missing, and special enough to hold my attention. He was gorgeous, and he was easy to talk to. He even made me want to tell him my whole family story, which wasn't something I told everybody.

I felt my eyes and nose start to burn and I bit my lip to keep my eyes from tearing up. I would be pissed if I actually cried over this. I didn't even know the guy's name and I was getting emotional about not ever seeing him again! How ridiculous!

But it wasn't ridiculous. I guess I was more sad that I had met somebody I could just tell was totally special and I would never see him again. I was sad because I knew I would never meet anybody like him again.

"What's your name?" I managed to ask him without letting my throat sound all croaky and choked up. "I don't even know your name."

I wasn't looking at him when I asked him. I was still feeling my nose burning, and my throat felt really tight. The pilot then came over the speaker and announced that we would be landing soon, and then gave small landing details. Once the pilot was done, I felt my throat go even tighter, if possible, and my eyes actually began to water.

"Percy," He replied evenly.

Percy. It was a name that at first didn't look like it suited him, but the more I thought about it, the more it did. He looked like a guy that would have a name like that. It wasn't a very common name, but he definitely looked like he owned it. After thinking about it for a few more silent moments, I deicided I couldn't imagine Absolutely Gorgeous Guy with any other name.

I could tell he was looking at me, because I could just feel it, but I didn't look back at him. I didn't want him to know I was upset.

But, of course, since he was perfect, he could sense it. He put a hand on my knee and rubbed it softly. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I whispered, "I don't even know why I'm sad. I mean, I don't even know you."

He didn't answer. He just rubbed my knee until I looked at him.

When we made eye contact I reached up and wiped at my eyes. Thankfully I wasn't crying, and no tears had fallen, but the water that had filled my eyes was making everything a little blurry.

"I kind of feel sad, too, if it makes you feel any better." He admitted. "I have never felt like I could talk to somebody so easily before."

"I think that's why I'm so sad," I told him, "Because I have never been able to open up to somebody like I've been able to with you."

"Yeah…" He said thoughtfully. I took a deep breath and looked away from him.

"I swear I'm not even usually this emotional." I blabbered, "I guess it's just because I'm going to go meet my dad or whatever-,"

I was cut off by Percy pressing his lips to the top of my hair. "Stop worrying so much about it."

I turned to him and raised my eyebrows. "It's kinda hard not to…"

"Look, I don't know your dad or your family or anything, but I'm sure it is all going to be fine," He raised his hand from my knee and rubbed the back of his neck. "You're a really cool person, and to me it sounds like you're really strong. I think you can handle this."

"Well, thanks," I blushed. I tried to smile at him to show him my appreciation. "Thanks for… um… distracting me from it all, too."

Percy laughed again, making my tummy tingle once more. I was beginning to really like his laugh. "Well, I mean, it wasn't really planned, but I guess, um… you're welcome."

The plane landed soon after that. Percy kept rubbing my knee the entire time, and we made small talk. We talked about places to eat in Los Angeles, places I had never been to before but places Percy highly recommended. We talked about his grandmother, who was beginning to wake up as the plane tilted towards the ground, and how she was moving to Los Angeles to retire. Percy told me about how he had flown to Texas to get her and was flying with her back because she was scared of planes, but it looked like she had done perfectly fine since she had slept the whole time.

By the time we had landed we were talking about how Percy had planned to build his own home in Los Angeles one day, but for now he was going to buy his first apartment. I told him I was planning to go to a college near my father's house, but I would commute at least until my first semester was over.

We began to file out of the plane and I felt even sadder than I did before. I pushed it away, though, and stopped at the end of the exit gate to tell Percy goodbye.

He stopped and rubbed the back of his neck like he had done before, in the plane. His grandmother continued walking, but since she was older, she wasn't getting very far.

"Goodbye," I said, half-smiling.

He didn't say anything back. He sort of smiled at me, and then reached forward and took my hand. He squeezed lightly, let it fall, and then walked away.

After Percy walked away and was swept into the crowded airport- an airport even bigger than the last one with even more people- I went to retrieve my luggage and find whoever it was picking me up.

It didn't take long to find my father. He had the same curling, blonde hair with grey streaks and the same grey eyes as my own. A part of me hated how much we looked alike. As I walked towards him, carrying my luggage awkwardly since the wheel was still broken, I noticed our similarities. I saw how we had the same forehead, and the same crease in between our eyebrows, like we spent a lot of time analyzing things. I had my mother's eyes, but my father and I shared the same eye shape. Our eyes kind of crinkled, and though my father wasn't old, he had laugh lines and laugh crinkles around his eyes.

I stopped right in front of him, and he smiled wide. "Annie! Hey!" He threw his arms around me and squeezed, rubbing his hands up and down my back. I stiffened, unsure of what to do back. Was I supposed to hug him back?

"I don't really go by Annie," I told him, "It's just Annabeth."

My father pulled away from me and frowned. "I used to call you Annie all the time."

"I was like ten, Dad."

He pursed his lips at me. "Right. Well, can I take your suitcase?"

I let him take my suitcase and I followed after him as he lead me through the airport. I watched him walk and wondered what his family was going to be like.

His family? My family? Weren't both the same?

I knew my father's family consisted of my older sister, a woman he had left my mother for, and two boys I had never met before that belonged to the mistress.

I hadn't seen my sister in years. I was in the seventh grade when she moved with my dad to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. She was about seventeen when she left, and I was thirteen. I remember looking up to Mal, and loving absolutely everything she did. She was involved in theatre at school, she was a ballet dancer at the YMCA, and she sang for the school's acapella group along with the school choir. She was pretty much perfect, and had all the traits I ever wanted from our genetic pool.

Mal had long, naturally straight hair, and it was thick and the kind of bleached blonde hair every Malibu girl spent thousands of dollars to get from a salon. I remembered her with the best tan, a natural tone that came from my father's ancestry of Cheyenne Native American blood. She and I shared the same parents, but our features were almost nothing alike. When you put us side by side, you would only be able to tell that we had the same color eyes. They were stormy grey, like our mom's.

Because God didn't think my sister's looks weren't perfect enough, He also blessed her with talents. Like I said, she had done a lot of acting and singing when our family was still whole, but that didn't begin to describe how talented she was. She had done community plays at the local theatre, and somehow she was discovered by an acting agent. The agent convinced my father that Mal had real potential in Hollywood, and that he would sign her if she agreed to move to Los Angeles and audition for his director friend's movie.

So off Mal went, taking my father with her, and leaving my mother and me behind. My sister had been "discovered" in the middle of the school year, and my parents had decided that it was best for me to finish my seventh grade year and then the whole family would be reunited in Los Angeles.

I guess my dad fell for another woman not long after that, though, because we didn't end up moving to Los Angeles.

My father opened the back door to a huge, black suburban for me. I slipped into it, took a seat on the leather and watched as he went around to the back and stuck my suitcase in.

Soon after my sister moved to Los Angeles, she became a hit. She started out in a couple of commercials, and then she began to act in movies and minor TV shows. My hometown blew up with excitement; everybody claimed they were Mal's best friend, and she was suddenly their claim to fame. As she climbed the ladder to success, I grew to be angry at her.

I guess I blamed her for my parent's separation. In my head, I knew that if my father had not moved to Los Angeles for Mal, he would have never met that woman, and my parents would never have divorced or been forced to separate. If Mal hadn't been selfish and insisted that my parents make this work for her, my family would still be whole.

I didn't say anything the entire ride to my father's house. We passed giant houses, tons of palm trees, and several taxis. I watched through the window as the traffic grew heavy, and I wondered if Percy was in any of those vehicles.

When Mal got famous enough to star in her own movie, I never saw it. I avoided watching anything with Mal in it, and I always made it a point to ignore the magazines with her face on them in the check out lines at stores, wanting really hard not to be involved with her. I never read the tabloids, and I never kept up with her. My mom would call her every other day, but they were short, clipped conversations, and I only ever heard one side of them. At first I called Mal, too, and we talked. Then, we kind of… stopped. I hadn't talked to her in forever, and since she never came home for birthdays or holidays, I never saw her, either.

My mom would send her presents and very occasionally go visit, but I never went. I always refused, and never wanted anything to do with her. Call me crazy, but I wanted to forget the sister that forgot me.

Because it was true. She had forgotten me, too. She never tried to contact me, either. It was a two way street, and there were no cars traveling on either side. We never spoke to each other.

Finally my father pulled his suburban into the driveway of a humungous house.

I tried my best to keep my eyes from bulging out of my head.

The place was _huge_. My father had to put in a code just for the entrance gates to open. The driveway was curling and long, made of giant stones and beautiful mixed rocks. Giant trees were scattered around the equally giant front yard. A gorgeous home built of white brick sat at the end of the winding driveway.

The windows were endless, and I didn't think I had enough time to count all of them. When we finally pulled up into the garage, I noticed at least six vehicles. As I opened my door and unbuckled my seatbelt, I stared at the black mustang we had parked beside. On the other side of the mustang was a big, black Hummer. Down the row of vehicles were cars I couldn't think of a brand name for, but looked expensive. My father took my luggage out of the back and smiled at me wearily.

"So this is home," He said, waving his arm awkwardly around the garage. "If you ever need to borrow a vehicle, just ask… the Hummer belongs to Matthew and the Mustang is Bobby's."

I nodded and followed him to the garage door that lead into the house. As soon as he opened the door, I noticed everything was white. The garage door opened to the kitchen, which had white cabinets, stone and marble floors, grey countertops, and a stunning stainless steel oven top and fridge. I tried my hardest not to gape.

Is this where I would call home? This giant home that clearly suited a famous celebrity, or maybe even the president? I had never even set foot in a place this nice before.

And just when I was begging my mouth not to keep gaping open in its embarrassing fashion, I turned around and noticed my sister sitting at the bar.

Her beautiful blonde hair was piled high on top of her head in a messy bun, she wore glasses, and she rocked a sweatshirt with a small hole near the collar. When we made eye contact, she tilted her head to the side and looked at me questioningly.

"So you really do have the same eyes as me, huh?" Was all she said. I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded awkwardly.

This was going to be a big change.

 **So I've decided to go ahead and start re-writing and revising this because I've had so many requests for it to be added back to Fanfiction... so tada! Here you go, guys.**

 **I need to know what y'all think of it, though! I am going to do my very best to keep this up and to keep adding to it. For now, though, this is all I have until I get more time to add more. Please stick with me!**

 **What did y'all think of Percy?**

 **Review, Review, Review!**


	2. Sometimes Your Mind Gets Blown

**Warning: vulgar language lol for the sake of character development.**

 **Rick owns all the characters except for obvious ones that belong to me. I own the plot and etc.**

Sometimes Things End Right

Chapter 2

Percy

The usual Hollywood traffic beeped and whirled around me.

Actually, let me rephrase- the traffic whirled around the car I sat in. Grandma sat in the front passenger's seat where she rattled on and on about basically her entire life story to my chauffer. I looked down at my phone, staring at a text.

It was short and simple.

 **Dinner at 6?**

Though it _looked_ like a question, I knew what it really meant. It meant dinner at six, be there.

I sighed and leaned back into my car seat. I closed my eyes and thought of my girlfriend.

I thought of how demanding she seemed to be. Before we were having so many problems, it used to be so easy. It was happy, and fun, and we were insane about each other.

Now all she did was make me go insane _on_ her.

Our fights were beginning to get uglier and uglier, and each time we both walked away without resolving anything at all. It was frustrating, but I knew that I didn't want to let her go.

But why?

My thoughts shifted to the girl from the plane. Why hadn't I asked her for her name? I could really slap myself. What kind of idiot has a perfect kiss with a girl and never even bother to ask her name?

My God, the girl was crazy interesting. I smirked to myself when I thought of the look on her face after she spilt her soda everywhere.

I was so mad. Of course, I was on the phone with a barking girlfriend panicking about some family issue or whatever, and if I hadn't been so worked up over that, maybe I wouldn't have been such a jerk.

I wondered what her name was. She definitely didn't look like she'd have an ordinary name. Her hair spun out in all directions, and curls bounced all around her shoulders. She had freckles sprinkled across her nose as if she had been personally kissed by the sun. There was no way this girl could be named something simple, like "Sarah" or "Jane."

The car drove on as I reminisced about the girl's lips; the way she felt pressed up against me as we kissed, and the way she kind of sighed when I slipped my tongue into her mouth kept my mind busy.

Before I knew it the car was gliding to a stop in front of the large gates belonging to my girlfriend.

Girlfriend? Ex-girlfriend?

What was she, anyway?

My driver hit in the code he probably had memorized by now, and the gates glided open. Grandma continued rambling on about the new nursing home she would be moving into this weekend.

If she was my girlfriend, why had I kissed the girl on the plane? And if she was my ex-girlfriend, why was I bending to her will so easily? Why was I doing exactly as she told me to do?

I checked my watch. It was about thirty minutes until I even had to be at her house for dinner. I sighed and slipped my phone into my pocket, deciding to put the thoughts of the girl from the plane to rest.

It would do no good to keep reminiscing. I wouldn't see her again, and she had her own life to get back to if I could, anyway. Besides, I still had a girlfriend (ex-girlfriend?) to work things out with.

"Grandma, you'll be okay until I get home tonight?" I asked, leaning over the center console to see her face. She smiled at me, her brown eyes twinkling. I smiled back instantly- she looked just like my mother. Her dark curls were almost completely grey, and shined with white and silver strands.

"I will," She nodded, "I may even save you a piece of peach cobbler if you don't stay out too late."

"I wouldn't dare," I replied, leaning forward to kiss her cheek. "Help yourself to absolutely anything in the apartment. You still have the key, right?"

"I do," She nodded again with a smile. "Now go, Percy. I will see you tonight."

I climbed out of the back of the car and looked up at the giant white house belonging to my girlfriend. I couldn't even remember the last time I had been at her house… was it a handful of months? Surely it hadn't been a whole year…

As I walked up the front steps, I thought about us. I was in the process of growing in my career currently, with my first major movie production premiering in a few short weeks, and I had begun working on a new project, with a new schedule beginning in the next week. Before all of this, and before my work had really taken off, though, I remembered how… calm things used to be.

My girlfriend and I could see one another as often as we liked, and the only schedule we really had to follow was hers. But once I had my own schedule to go by, we tried desperately to fill in the breaks with each other. I can honestly say, though, that it was incredibly difficult. My body would be screaming for sleep, my mind would completely shut down, and I could tell she was doing the same. We were too busy for each other, and we neglected our own needs in order to be around one another. This usually put us in the worst moods, too, and our time together had a 70% chance of arguments. After we began breaking up and fighting more, the percentage rose to about 92%. When we weren't fighting, we were fucking.

Simple.

So usually when I saw my girlfriend, it was on set in our trailers, or in our dressing rooms, or in some hotel or whatever. Once I bought my own place she would come by for a little bit, but I couldn't even remember the last time she was there, either.

I had just pulled the front door open when it swung open and a blonde head popped out of it.

"Mal," I said, trying to read her expression quickly. What kind of mood was she in today? Was she happy with me? Was she still mad from our last fight? I didn't have much time to analyze her, though, because she yanked my arm and her eyes widened at me.

"You're late," She breathed, her eyebrows scrunching together and her expression looking worried. "She's already here, and I'm freaking out."

I raised my eyebrows, surprised. I noticed then that she was wearing one of my old sweatshirts, the one with the hole in the collar, and she hadn't bothered with any kind of makeup. She also wore her glasses, which I had honestly forgotten she even wore, and a pair of faded, old leggings. She was wearing her "I'm-so-stressed-out-I-can-barely-think-so-do-not-expect-me-to-even-be-able-to-put-an-outfit-together" outfit. She yanked me inside, and I followed her up the giant staircase and up to her room.

"What is going on?" I asked once we were safely inside her bedroom. Instead of answering, though, she shook her head and closed the door behind us. Before I could question her again, she had me pushed against the closed door and her mouth was on mine.

She frantically kissed me, using her hands to pull my neck down to her. She wasn't much shorter than me; she came to about my shoulders, but it was still enough for her to have to stand on her tiptoes to reach me. I put my arms around her, alarmed.

"Mal," I said, pulling away. "What is going on? We need to talk…"

"I don't want to talk about it," She insisted. She pulled her sweatshirt over her head and reached for the waistband of my pants. "Can we just… not talk?"

Part of me wanted to stop her and demand answers from her. A smaller part of me still thought about the girl on the plane, and how we had just been kissing hours before. The biggest part of me, unfortunately, was all for Mal's distraction plan. My gaze flicked down to my pants, and I groaned.

It didn't take long before Mal had tugged me back against her, and the next thing I knew, we were laying horizontally on her giant bed, with her naked and on top of me. I still had my underwear on, but my sweatpants laid in a pile on the floor by the door, along with my t-shirt. I rubbed my hands up and down her smooth legs, over her bottom, and up and down her back as she kissed me.

All thoughts of the girl on the airplane were gone as Mal worked her way down my body, bringing my underwear down with her. Just when it was getting good, and her tongue and lips were working together to bring pleasurable noises from my own mouth, the door to Mal's room banged open.

"Jesus," A female voice said.

"Oh, shit," A guy's voice said, panic in his tone. Mal dove off of me, dragging a pillow with her. I yanked the pillow from under my head out and shoved it over myself.

"What the hell!" Mal screamed from the ground. She sat up, her face blazing red and her eyes wide and alarmed. Her glasses had been knocked off when she fell to the floor on the other side of the bed. She used the pillow to cover her chest.

I turned to the doorway, feeling all the air completely sucked out of my chest once I laid eyes on the owner of the voices.

Matthew, Mal's younger brother, stood with one hand over his eyes, and the other on the doorknob. Next to him stood a girl with curly hair, wide grey eyes, an unbelieving expression, and her arms holding a broken suitcase.

"Oh, shit," I repeated Matthew's statement. Because oh shit was right.

My airplane girl was staring right at me.

Before I could react, though, Mal was screaming.

"Get out!" She screamed, pointing to the door, "What happened to _knocking_?!"

"I'm sorry," Matthew said, his hand still covering his eyes. I looked at the airplane girl again, feeling my face heat up, but she was avoiding eye contact with me. I felt the sudden urge to throw up. "Dad told me Annabeth was staying here for now… the guest room isn't ready or something…"

"I don't give a rat's ass," Mal hissed, standing up and still using the pillow to cover herself. "Fucking _knock_ next time! I thought we made this agreement _months_ ago, Matt!"

"Sorry," He replied quickly, shutting the door. Before it closed, though, airplane girl's eyes flicked to me. What I saw could've made my heart stop.

Her face held an expression I had seen many times before in Mal's face. She looked furious.

How could I have not known? When I looked back at Mal, I saw all the similarities at once. They had the same eyes, for Pete's sake! Their hair was the exact same color, and they had a few of the same facial expressions. I was an idiot. I could've slapped myself.

"I'm so sorry," Mal climbed back on the bed, crawling towards me. "This freaking sucks."

"No, it's okay," I stood up, dodging Mal as she tried to swing a leg over me, and walked over to pick my clothes up. "It isn't really a good idea, anyway."

"What do you mean?" She scowled and crossed her arms over her chest while I pulled my sweatpants on. I pulled my shirt over my head.

I wondered if I should tell her about the plane girl- did they say her name was Annabeth? I shouldn't have gotten caught up in Mal when she pulled me into her bedroom. I cursed under my breath.

"What is going on with you?" She stood up and pulled my underwear over her legs. "Is it because Matthew barged in here? You didn't act like this the time Bobby found us-,"

"Your sister came in, too," I pointed out. "And, Mal-,"

"Well, that's what she gets for not knocking," Mal rolled her eyes. "Besides, she isn't even going to be staying in here. There's no way she could, I can't share a room with her!"

My mind was racing. I couldn't think straight. "Mal-," I began again, not really knowing where to start. Should I tell her I hooked up with her sister on the airplane?

"Percy, she looks just like me." Mal pulled on my old sweatshirt, "She looks just like our mom. And she's here, and everybody's so… eager to please her. I don't know."

"What?" My mind was still racing. What would Mal do if I told her I had hooked up with Annabeth? I didn't even know they were sisters!

I didn't even think I would ever see her again… yet, I kept having this feeling, like I was panicking, like I had something to go do.

"Dad had this whole plan to take the whole family out to dinner with Annabeth," Mal rolled her eyes, "Then she comes in like, 'I ate at the airport.' It was like she _purposely_ ruined our plans, you know? And Dad wanted to tell her about how he is going to marry Savannah-,"

Mal continued to babble while I scratched the back of my neck and rubbed at my jaw. I realized that the panicky feeling I had was coming from Annabeth. I wanted to- no, I _needed_ to go find her. I needed to _explain_ -,

"-God, Percy, are you even _listening_?" Mal glared at me. "Where are you?"

"In my head," I muttered.

"Look, if it's about locking the door, I know we talked about it when Bobby found us that time, and I swear I'll do it next time-,"

I shook my head, "No, Mal, it isn't about the door." My voice came out sharper than I had intended. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed at me. She crossed her arms tighter over her chest.

"Then what, Percy? Because this is getting kind of old, you know." When I looked at her questioningly, she rolled her eyes. "We never hookup anymore. Today was the first time in a while you've actually let me touch you, and now that we're alone you won't even finish."

"Mal," I said, exasperated, "I mean, come on! Your family is here, and not to mention they just walked in here-,"

She snorted, "That never stopped you before! When Bobby walked in on us that time-,"

"Yeah, you keep bringing that up," I snapped back at her, "But that was a different time! Your brother walked in on us about six months ago, Mal, and that was before-,"

"'Before?'" Mal raised her eyebrows at me. "That is complete bullshit, and you know it! We haven't had sex in almost four months, Percy-,"

Had it really been that long? "That isn't true," I shook my head, "You came to the set-,"

"-every time we're _almost_ there, you make up some excuse-,"

"-and we did it on the couch in my dressing room-,"

"-and you never finish-,"

"-I remember it because we had that fight-,"

"-we always fight!" Mal raised her voice over mine. She was yelling, and throwing her arms around. "I need to know right now, Percy, what is going on! Is it because I cheated? Are you still punishing me?"

I closed my mouth and looked away from her. "I don't know."

"Because if it's because I cheated, I can't keep apologizing for it, Percy! I can't. I feel like I've said 'I'm sorry' until I can't breathe anymore! What else do you want me to do? If you don't want me anymore, say something!" She had tears running down her cheeks. I immediately felt the itch to wipe them away. "Do something, damn it!"

I didn't reply. Instead, I stared at her, my mind wandering to the girl on the plane. Where was she right now? Was she telling Matthew about me? Was she angry at me? I had to know…

"Why do you keep coming back to me if you don't want to be here?" She demanded, yelling at me. "Find somebody else if you don't want me!"

Was she still here? I thought about her hands, how small and soft they were, and her curls, how soft they felt when I ran my fingers through it as I kissed her…

"I did," I said, my words coming out almost as a whisper. It was so soft I almost believed for a second she hadn't heard me. I was wrong, though.

Her eyes widened immediately, and her mouth opened. "What?" Her voice came out as a squeak.

Regret washed over me instantaneously. What had I done? Would I have to tell her about the plane now? I barely even knew the girl- hell, just moments before I had found out the girl's real name. How could I say I found somebody? I didn't even know her!

Yet, I couldn't stop thinking about her.

"You slept with somebody?" Her eyes flooded with tears, and her face grew extremely red. She reached out and slapped me on the chest, hard enough to make me flinch. "You asshole!"

"I didn't sleep with anybody," I grabbed her hands, which were curled into fists and struggling to come at me again. "I kissed a girl, but that was just it-,"

Even though it totally was _not_ 'just it.'

"I can't believe you," She screamed. She almost sounded like a banshee; her voice was high pitched, wailing, and absolutely, terrifyingly angry. She struggled to free her hands, trying desperately to hit me again.

"Mal, can we just _talk_?" I tried to hold her down. "Let me explain-,"

"Who the hell is she?" Mal brought up a foot and kicked at me, "Who is she? Is she that slut off of your set?"

"What? Juniper? No!" I used my own leg to block Mal's kicks, "Mal, let me just talk-,"

"No!" She screamed, somehow making her face turn even more red. "I don't want to! You cheated on me, Percy!"

And, of course, the next words I said were incredibly wrong, and should never have been said; "We were broken up!"

Huge mistake. Mal screamed in fury and launched herself at me, yanking her fists from my grasp. She knocked me over, sending me crashing into the door. Luckily it didn't come down, but she landed right on me, fists flying and nails scratching.

I reached out, trying to catch her hands again, but failing. I felt her scratch my cheek, and then I finally resolved to wrapping my arms around her completely, pinning her hands to her sides. "Let me go!" She wailed.

"No," I replied, still holding her down. She struggled for a while before finally breaking down and just sobbing.

"I can't believe you," She whimpered, "How could you?"

I didn't answer for a while. She was right. How could I? I knew that I was still with Mal when I kissed the girl from the plane- Annabeth. I knew good and well, and even though I defended myself with 'we were on a break,' I was still committed to Mal. I squeezed my eyes closed.

"Do you want to know about her?" I asked, begging Mal in my head to say no.

 _Please don't make me tell you who she is. Please don't make me tell you it was your little sister._

God, Mal's little sister.

I didn't even know for sure how old the girl was.

"No," Mal said quietly, her sobs dying. She was reduced to sniffles and shakes. "I don't."

"I'm sorry," I whispered, laying my head on her. She still shook in my arms, shaking her head back and forth.

"Why wasn't I good enough?" She shook harder now, and her breathing picked up. "I wasn't good enough for you? Why did you have to find somebody else?"

I thought about how ironic it was that she was asking me that question. I remember feeling the same way when I found out that she had cheated on me.

"I don't know," I shook my head. Her breathing quickened, and I realized she was starting to have an anxiety attack.

"Mal, please," I begged, loosening my hold and rubbing her back, "Please don't freak out. I'm right here."

"What did she have that I don't? Are you leaving me for her?" Mal grabbed at my shirt, pulling me impossibly closer. "Percy, please don't. Don't leave me…"

I wrapped her in my arms and closed my eyes. My chest tightened, and I felt like crap. This was my best friend, my first everything, and I was the one causing her so much pain. How could I?

"I'm not going anywhere," I told her, "Shhh… I'm right here."

"Don't leave," She whimpered, and I felt tears drop onto my shirt, "Please."

"I'm not," I told her.

~oOo~

It took a while before Mal stopped crying. I held her, my back against her bedroom door and her slumped in my arms, for what felt like hours. I rubbed up and down her back, shushing her, and promising her over and over again that I wasn't going to leave her. When she finally stopped sniffling, I realized she had cried herself to sleep.

I stood up, lifting Mal along with me. I carried her to her bed, laid her down, and pulled the duvet over her body. Her nose was red and her cheeks were splotchy, and her face had tear stains all down it. I felt my stomach churn, realizing that what I had told her really hurt her bad.

I left the room, closing the door behind me and turning off the light.

What had I done? I had promised her that I wouldn't leave, but as I left her room and walked down the stairs, I knew I had to leave. I couldn't stay with her- though my heart loved Mal, it wasn't _in love_ with her. I didn't have a desire to be her boyfriend any longer; instead, I felt like all I had a duty to being was her friend.

"Percy!" The voice of Mal's father, Frank, called out to me. "Hey, man!"

I had been intending to leave, because I had no desire to stay, but Mr. Chase had caught me at the front door. He stood in the hallway, wearing a nice, pressed button down and suit pants. "Hello, Mr. Chase."

"I'm assuming you aren't joining us for dinner?" He asked with a frown. "Where is Mal?"

"Uh-," I looked up towards the stairs. What was I supposed to say?

"It sounded like you guys were having another argument," Mr. Chase quirked an eyebrow at me, but didn't give me a chance to answer. "Is everything alright?"

"Now it is," I nodded, "She fell asleep, though-,"

"Ah, no biggie," He waved a hand at me. "Why don't you stay for dinner?"

"Really, I shouldn't," I rubbed at the back of my neck, "I have to go back to see my grandmother-,"

"Savannah made dinner," He smiled, giving me that look that clearly meant "You-don't-get-to-say-no-I'm-your-girlfriend's-father-and-what-I-say-goes. "Stay. You can meet my other daughter, and Bobby is home from college, so everybody's here."

Mr. Chase ushered me into the sitting area outside of the kitchen, where three pristine white couches sat in a semi-circle around a small fireplace and glass coffee table. Annabeth sat on one of them, a coffee cup in her hands. She blushed when we made eye contact and looked away.

"Annie, this is Percy, Mal's boyfriend." Mr. Chase introduced us, having no idea that we already knew one another. "Percy, this is Annie, my second daughter and Mal's sister. Can I get you a coffee?"

I nodded and took a seat across from Annabeth on a white cough. Mr. Chase walked out of the room, calling for the kitchen assistant to bring in a coffee.

"Um," I coughed, not really knowing where to start. "We need to talk."

She turned her head towards me and glared, focusing her cloudy grey eyes on me. "You're joking, right?"

"Um, not exactly," I rubbed at my jaw nervously, "I just wanted to clear up a few things-,"

"What kind of things would you like to clear up?" She raised her eyebrows at me, "I think I've pretty much got all of it- your girlfriend is my _sister_. Yeah, I got that when I walked in on you guys _naked_."

I blinked, not really knowing what to say. She pretty much summed it up. "I just wanted to explain-,"

"I don't need you to," She laughed coldly. The kitchen assistant, Mrs. Doty, rushed in and handed me a white coffee cup on a saucer with a little packet of creamer and sugar on the side. Mrs. Doty must have noticed the tension in the air, though, because she scurried out as fast as she rushed in.

"Can you just give me a chance?" I asked, putting my saucer and cup down on the coffee table.

"I gave you a chance!" She whispered fiercely, "You are not who you said you were!"

"Now hold on a minute," I whispered back, snapping. "I have no idea what you mean by 'I'm not who I say I am.' I never once told you a lie- I told you my girlfriend and I were off and on, and I told you the whole truth."

"I was under the impression you two were 'off,'" Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Especially when you pushed your tongue down my throat. Obviously that isn't the case, though- what's it like, hooking up with a stranger one second, only to turn around and fuck your girlfriend a couple of hours later?"

I felt a surge of anger rush out of me. I didn't like the way she was talking to me- vulgar language simply didn't suit her beautiful face, and it was pretty noticeable how angry she was. It was uncomfortable for sure, but definitely angering.

"Hey," I snapped, "The last time I checked, you weren't protesting. It takes two to tango, _Annie_. By the way- what the actual hell? You never even told me your fucking name!"

She put her coffee cup down and stood up, looking down at me in anger. "You're the idiot who didn't realize who I was!"

"I'm an idiot?" I stood up across from her and tried my hardest to keep my voice down. "How was I supposed to know who you were? You were a stranger—if anything, you're the one who should have recognized _me_! I mean, it isn't hard to miss; your sister and I have been photographed together for years. How did you not know who I am? I mean, in case you haven't put two and two together, she's kind of famous…"

Annabeth shot me the nastiest glare I had seen so far. "You dated her for years and never asked what her sister looked like?"

"You're her sister and you never asked what her boyfriend looked like?" I shot back.

She sighed loudly, annoyed, and turned away with her arms folded across her chest. "I can't stand you."

"I can't believe you," I shot back.

"It's easy to avoid your sister and her boyfriend when you don't go looking into the media for her," She mumbled. "I didn't know you were her boyfriend when we were on the plane."

I still couldn't comprehend how that was possible. Mal was incredibly famous, and I hate to admit it because it made me sound like a pretentious ass, but I wasn't exactly a nobody, either. Even though I had shot minor commercials, my newest movie's commercials were aired everywhere. How could she not know?

I realized she must have tried extremely hard to stay away from anything having to do with her sister. I remembered her telling me on the plane how much she despised her father, and how uncomfortable it all made her. I realized she wasn't letting on how much it bothered her, though, and I softened towards her.

"I'm sorry," I stepped towards her. She raised her hand at me, holding it up as if to tell me not to come any closer. For some reason I stopped in my tracks.

"I don't care," She snapped. She reached down and scooped up her coffee cup. "I don't want to hear it."

"Look, I just want to talk," I said, knowing she was about to flee.

"I just want you to leave," She looked at me, and I noticed her pained expression. "It's hard enough being here with a family I don't want any part of. Now I have to deal with you being around?"

I didn't say anything. What could I say?

"I don't want you here," Annabeth shook her head. "And I swear I'll keep everything that happened between us. I won't tell. Just go."

I stared at her, not knowing what to say. If it were Mal, I would stay, because I knew by now that "go" with her really meant "I'm mad but I don't want you to leave."

I had no idea how to deal with Annabeth, though. Was she like her sister? Did she want me to stay and talk about it?

Something told me she didn't, though. The way she glared at me, and the shocking storm in her grey eyes bewildered me. She had the same eyes as Mal, but much cloudier, like she had seen horrible things, or like she had much more authority. I felt the need to bow to her, or to listen to her commands.

"I don't really know what to do here," I told her, unsure. "I can't get you off my mind."

Annabeth raised her eyebrows at me and snorted, laughing out loud in my face. "Yeah, right. You were literally _fucking my sister_ not even one hour ago, Percy. A couple of hours before that, you were making out with me. I'm sorry, but it's hard to believe that you 'can't get me off your mind.' Want to know what I really think? I think you're a playboy who doesn't care if he gets in a mindless fuck on an airplane; you're a playboy who only cares about getting into a little blonde girl's pants."

I knew I would do much more thinking on that later. She was right- my actions weren't matching up with what was really going on. But then again, she had no idea how I really felt. She had no idea that I hadn't 'fucked' her sister, and that I had told Mal I kissed somebody else. She only knew what she saw.

Because she wasn't allowing me to explain, damn it.

I knew I shouldn't have, but I did. I shouldn't have said anything, because I knew nothing good came out of being angry, but that didn't stop me. Instead, I smirked at her, pulling out my smug look, and replying, "You know what? You're right. I could care less."

And with that, I turned away, leaving Annabeth with wide eyes and the nastiest expression I had ever seen.

And I didn't even care.

I left the house, seething. She hadn't even given me a chance to explain! She was commanding, and it completely blew my mind how I had bowed to her so quickly- I hadn't protested, I had sounded like a weak little animal. I went to the garage and yanked Mal's keys to her black Lamborghini off the wall of keys. I sped out of the driveway, knowing Mal wouldn't care if I borrowed it. Actually, she'd probably be relieved- if I borrowed her car, that meant I'd bring it back, which meant I would definitely return to her.

It was such a screwed up way to think, but I knew her so well. Mal was the kind of girl that got super stressed because she worked incredibly hard at her job. She was so talented, and as I drove, I thought more about her and Annabeth.

Were they alike at all? Was Annabeth as driven as Mal? Was she as ambitious?

I had no idea who Annabeth even was, other than the small snippets she had told me on the plane. Mal was so intent on doing well in everything she did that it literally ruined her on some nights. She stressed so much that she had anxiety attacks, and anything that upset her could trigger them.

I ran a hand over my face after I stopped at a red light. Mal may not be the right girl for me anymore, but she still held something over me. I still felt the need to be in her life, because I still loved her.

Yet I knew that I wasn't in love with her, and that it had been a while since I had been in love with her. She was right when she said we hadn't had sex in months- I just didn't feel the passion for it anymore, and despite what I had venomously spit at Annabeth, I wasn't the type of guy to be labeled as a 'playboy' who 'just wanted in a little blonde girl's pants.'

I wanted to scream. Annabeth had made me so mad, and I had no idea how to talk to somebody like her. I couldn't figure her out- her grey eyes held me in place, paralyzed me, and demanded command.

I gripped my hands tighter on the wheel and groaned in frustration. What was I even supposed to do? I was furious at that girl, but I knew I wouldn't be able to walk away so easily. There was something about her that called out to me.

But what was it?

 ***quick note: I changed a lot, you may have noticed! The reason being is that I want to develop my characters better this time! It's the whole reason why I wanted to do a revision. So, I still want to keep Percy's temper, but I want to explain better why he stays with Mal instead of going straight for Annabeth! I also wanted to use Annabeth's past and mistrust on Percy, so that she didn't accept him so easily. I wanted to develop Mal into somebody likeable intead of the "bad guy." So stick with me! I hope it turns out good! If you have any ideas, please let me know!**

 **PEM**


	3. Sometimes People Aren't What They Seem

Sometimes Things End Right

Chapter 3

Annabeth

My conscious was seething. She was stomping around, her arms crossed over her chest, muttering about how pissed off she was. Every now and then she'd turn around and glare at my subconscious, who sat on a little imaginary couch looking pitiful and sorry for herself. I decided to call my subconscious Olivia and my conscious Lydia.

The truth was, I was just as pissed as Lydia was. She had every right to be mad at Olivia- Olivia was the whole reason we were in this mess! If I hadn't listened to Olivia babbling about "how cute" the stranger on the plane was, or "how hot" he was, I wouldn't have even noticed.

Then I realized I was getting pissed off at imaginary people in my head.

I groaned and sat on the couch, my head in my hands. How could I be so stupid? Percy did have a point, after all; how could I _not_ know he was Mal's boyfriend? Like Percy said, they were apparently all over the news. I could see that much from glancing at the piles of magazines on the coffee table in front of the couch. A seductive Mal Chase peered at me from under her eyelashes on the cover of a magazine, an arm slung around the neck of a tanned guy with the same jawbone belonging to Percy Jackson. I knew it was him, even if they had cropped out his face.

I reached over and shoved the top magazine off, sending it and three others to the floor.

So it was partly my fault, then. If I hadn't gone out of my way to avoid literally anything having to do with my father and sister maybe I wouldn't be so ignorant. If I had done some research before coming to live with them I would probably know better.

But that didn't leave him innocent, either! I stared at the magazine cover of Mal and I realized how much we looked alike- even if she had straighter and longer hair, a delicate, heart-shaped face, longer eyelashes, a different facial structure, you could see it all in the eyes. Just like I should've known better, he should've, too.

Still, I ignored Olivia when she piped up about how Percy and I were both in the wrong, and I didn't stop Lydia from snarling in her direction.

I was pissed off, and I knew that part of the reason I was so angry was because I had really felt a connection with him.

Dad walked into the sitting area and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "So, um, dinner has been cancelled. Your sister isn't feeling well… I'm sorry, Annie. This isn't how I wanted tonight to go."

I sighed and stood up, picking up the coffee cup I had held earlier. "I'll just put this away, then."

"You can still eat, but we won't be eating all together. I'd rather show you around, though. I would love for you to get comfortable and to know your way around before everybody gets busy tomorrow. Your sister has a media thing-,"

"Cool," I interrupted, not really caring about whatever media thing Mal was doing the next day. "I'll just put this away."

Dad followed me into the kitchen, seeming to relax a bit. He looked sort of stressed. "Savannah, honey, this is Annabeth."

A woman stood in the kitchen, her hand halfway in the oven and reaching for something wrapped in tinfoil. She spun around, the foiled package sitting on a grey pan. The woman smiled brightly, blonde hair wisps falling around her face from the tight bun on her head. It was obvious she was sweating by the looks of her makeup beading up around her forehead.

For some reason, I appreciated this. I appreciated that she was working to make dinner.

Even if she was wearing a body-hugging black and white striped dress and tall black heels.

"Oh, hello!" She said excitedly, sliding the pan onto the top of the counter and pulling her kitchen glove off her hand. "I'm so glad to meet you! Finally!"

She reached her hand out to shake my hand. Immediately my eyes caught on the sight of a giant ring on her left hand's ring finger. Before my eyes could narrow, though, the woman thought better of a hand shake and pulled me into a hug.

"You can call me 'Sav,'" She pulled away, holding me at arm's length. "I'm really sorry about dinner being cancelled. I had wanted to change out of my day clothes and fix up myself before we had our first introductions… I do hope you don't think anything bad of me!"

"Of course not," I smiled back at her, surprising myself with a genuine promise. "I actually admire you for cooking. I've never learned."

Sav's eyebrows rose. "Really? That's wild- every girl should learn a little about cooking."

"Of course, this isn't an every night occurrence," My dad chimed in, "We have family dinner maybe three times a week because of how busy our schedules are. We like to eat together on Sunday's, but the other two nights kind of just fall into place."

"I always make breakfast, though," Sav winked. "The most important meal of the day!"

"Sav is Mal's manager," Dad said, opening one of the cabinets in the kitchen and pulling out a long loaf of bread. He handed it to Sav and she began unwrapping it. "We hired her when we moved, and she's hung around ever since."

Sav chuckled and hung her head while she sliced away at the bread. "I don't know if 'hung around' is the most appropriate word, hon."

"Right," Dad turned to me, his eyes crinkling. "I wanted to tell you…"

"You guys are engaged," I raised an eyebrow at him. "I saw the ring."

"Oh," He said, surprise overtaking his expression.

"We were going to announce it at dinner," Sav turned back around to me, leaning on the counter. She held her hand out to me, showing me the huge engagement ring again. "But then Mal got sick, and it's just so hard to get everybody together, and we didn't want to wait until Sunday to tell you all together… It's just so exciting, you know? It wouldn't be fair for us to keep the secret any longer."

I nodded and pretended to look over her ring. It was gorgeous, but something inside of me was bitter about it.

I was still pretty bitter about the while situation, to be honest.

"So, let me introduce you to the others," Dad cleared his throat. "Come with me."

I followed him through the house. He pointed out a dining room, a closed door leading to a master bedroom, a guest room, and double doors he called "the office." The hallways were long and wide, and each wall had a huge portrait on them of people I've never seen before- specifically, two blonde boys doing mundane things like playing sports at different ages. I still wasn't sure how old they actually were- or who they actually were- because the oldest picture I had seen was what looked like a high school portrait. There were also several portraits of Mal, mostly professionally taken pictures of her from albums, or guitars she had used in the past- or so I assumed. I had never kept track of what guitars she used or whatever.

"This is where Sav works," Dad pushed open the large double doors. Inside was an office bigger than my mother's living room back at home. A large desk sat in the middle of the room with papers stacked neatly on every corner and a big bookshelf stood behind with albums and glittering awards perched on the shelves. Two men, blonde and brunette, sat at desks opposite of each other, both dressed smartly and working on computers. They looked up and nodded at me. "Her desk is the one in the middle, and this is our bodyguards, but they've been around for almost two years…"

The blonde man stood, holding his hand out to me. I took it and shook his hand, feeling his tight grip. His arms were huge and muscular, even beneath his button-down. "Hello, I'm Luke. It's nice to meet you, Annabeth."

Before I could question how he knew my name, the other man stood up and held his hand out to me, too. He was bigger than Luke, with a round chest and a thick neck. He had arms bigger than Luke's and his grip was tighter. Luke was taller, though, with longer legs and a leaner abdomen. Travis wasn't short, but he was probably a few inches shorter than Luke. Olivia was drooling. "I'm Travis."

Travis had a country accent and a boyish, mischievous grin. I pushed away the thought that he was undeniably attractive, because the last time I thought that about somebody, I ended up hooking up with my sister's boyfriend.

"So these two work for us, monitoring security systems, hanging around Mal during events, just keeping precautionary measures for us…" Dad said, waving his hand around. "She had this ordeal with a stalker once, and that's when we got Luke… Travis came in a little while after that once her fans got a little crazy at concerts."

"Cool," I nodded, trying to look anywhere but at Travis or Luke. It didn't work, though. My eyes landed on Luke's, and he smirked at me.

"If you ever need them for anything, they're most likely going to be here during the day, but they chauffer and trail us when we're out. It all depends on social and public matters, too… for example, if Mal heads out to the set, she'll take both guys with her, but if she just goes to dinner it will probably just be one of them that goes."

"That sounds like a busy job," I said, making eye contact with Travis. He shrugged, moving the mouse on the computer silently.

"It's our job," Luke spoke up. "We literally live for your sister's safety. Besides, we get a lot of time off, believe it or not. Lately she hasn't been going out much, so only one of us is on duty."

"At this point she feels more like family to us," Travis said. "It's like getting paid to be comfortable around our only families."

"Right," Dad said, smiling. "They're like 30-year-old sons I've never had."

"Oh, Frank," Luke laughed, "We're not even thirty. Don't let him lie to you."

I didn't need Dad to lie to me. It was obvious both men were young. Olivia had noticed, and was walking around the room with heels on, strutting and showing off her legs under a mini skirt. Lydia was disgusted at her tramp-ness. Travis had to be about twenty-six, and I would call you crazy if you told me he didn't have past military experience. Luke looked like he was about the same age, but something about his eyes threw me off and I couldn't guess his age. However, even though they looked somewhat young, there was a definite air about them that spoke no-nonsense, and though they laughed with my father and joked about being family, it was obvious they still took their job seriously.

Dad turned around and walked out of the office, leaving me to wave a goodbye to the bodyguards. I saw Luke nod his head back, but Travis' eyes lingered for a moment, his mischievous grin ghosting his lips. I hesitated at it, not sure what to make of it, but ended up closing the double doors behind me the way they were when we entered. Olivia waved goodbye, sashaying her bottom as she exited the office. Lydia rolled her eyes and shoved Olivia the rest of the way out of the door.

We started to climb the big marble staircase, Dad breezing past the hanging pictures as if he'd seen them thousands of times. It blew my mind how he could stroll so casually through this place. The portraits were framed in glass frames with metal decorations and lavishing little touches here and there. There were portraits of Mal with beautiful backgrounds, her bleach-blonde hair standing out against each one and the top of her head framed by the sun's glow, almost like a halo. There were baby pictures of two little boys with blonde hair that fell over their eyes, chubby arms that waved above their heads and brown eyes that sparkled at the camera. Closer to the top of the stairs were pictures of Mal with the little boys, but they were older, maybe middle school age, with short hair and boyish grins.

"So the boys are Sav's sons," Dad started to explain as he stopped at the first door in the hallway. "This is Matthew's room, but the boys usually hang out in the basement. We call it their man-cave…"

He trailed off as he knocked on the door twice and turned the knob. The door swung open, but it caught on something as soon as it opened enough for one foot to slide through the crack. Dad muttered something under his breath and shoved the door the rest of the way open with his shoulder.

The first thing I noticed about the room was that it was an absolute mess. There were clothes everywhere, and I couldn't tell you what color the floor even was, or if it was carpet or wood. A bed was supposedly in the corner of the room, but there was no comforter and there was a mess of take-out boxes and food bags on every surface in the room- a coffee table, two dressers, and a wardrobe. I saw Gatorade bottles thrown around, and a flat screen TV hanging on the wall. I finally found the comforter piled onto the couch in a heap, a pile of socks and underwear near it. I also noticed a mesh bag with what looked like football gear inside by the door, which had to be what was in the way of the door. I cringed.

"Jesus," Dad muttered under his breath. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number, holding the phone to his ear with his lips pursed. A few moments later, I heard a phone ring from inside the room, and something moved under the comforter piled onto the couch.

"Matthew!" Dad growled, stepping over piles of clothes and yanking the comforter off the couch. A boy was under it, half-dressed and with wet hair. He blinked up at my dad, his face looking drowsy and tired. He stretched his arms above his head and yawned.

"My phone is ringing." He acknowledged, patting around him on the couch in search of it.

"That would be me," Dad said dryly, hanging up on his end. Immediately the ringing ceased. "What in the hell are you doing in here? Why does your room look this way?"

"No reason," He shrugged, standing up and kicking his way through the piles of clothes around his feet. He wore blue striped boxers and white socks that came above his ankles. "I guess the cleaning ladies haven't come this week yet, huh?"

"This is ridiculous," Dad replied, crossing his arms over his chest and looking around the room. "I can't believe you live like this."

The boy, Matthew, shrugged. He pulled a shirt from the floor and sniffed at it, and then obviously debated on whether to wear it.

"Annabeth, this is Matthew," My dad said, coming back to stand by me. "I'm sorry you had to see him like this, but, uh… this is him all the time, you know?"

Matthew had obviously decided that the shirt was good enough to wear because he had shucked it over his head and was now grinning at me. "Hey, what's up?"

"Of course, we had planned on better introductions…" Dad trailed off. "Matthew, where can we find Bobby?"

"Bobby could be in the basement," Matthew shrugged, pulling on a pair of gym shorts. I crossed my arm over my shoulder awkwardly, rubbing my hand up and down my arm. "Then again, he could be at, like, math club or something."

Dad rolled his eyes. "Anyways, this is Matthew. Bobby is his twin, they're both in high school; the only difference is, Matthew lives like a pig and plays sports while Bobby studies and organizes…"

"I'm also the cuter one," Matthew winked at me.

"And she's also going to be your sister-in-law," Dad snorted at Matthew. Though it was a joke, there was an air of fun between my dad and this boy I had never met before. It was obvious there was a bond between them, something much deeper than what could have been formed over a few days' time.

I began to wonder just how long Matthew had been in my dad's life.

"We met earlier," I said, remembering Matthew pushing open Mal's bedroom door and the scene unfolding before my eyes. I remembered Percy, with his eyes closed and holding my sister's blonde hair while she…

I squeezed my eyes closed and shook my head to get rid of the memory. "Right," Matthew said quickly, "Way before dinner was supposed to happen. The guest room wasn't set up so Annabeth was chilling in an empty room."

"The guest room should be ready by tomorrow afternoon," Dad said apologetically. "Besides, I thought Bobby showed her around?"

"That was me," Matthew rolled his eyes, "We showed her to Mal's room, but Mal was, uh-,"

"Busy," I said, avoiding Matthew's eye contact. "She was busy."

"Right," Matthew nodded, "But I guess this is our formal introduction."

"Hey," I nodded at him. "Nice to meet you."

It was all a game, because Matthew and I had met, but he was right, it wasn't formal. I hadn't even known his name before Dad introduced us. He was just somebody Dad had pointed at and told to show me to my room. Now it was clear that he was more of a family member in this house than I was.

Dad's phone started ringing in his pocket. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and rubbed the back of his neck. "I've got to get this. You can serve yourself in the kitchen when you're ready," Dad nodded at me. "What time is your orientation tomorrow?"

"Orientation is at nine," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. It was a habit I did when I was nervous. Why was I nervous? Was it the realization that I was an outsider in this family already? Or was it the memory of my sister with Percy?

"I can probably drive you," Dad nodded, "If not, I can have somebody…" He trailed off, answering his phone and pressing it to his ear. He stepped out of the room.

"Does he always answer the phone in the middle of a conversation?" I asked, looking at Matthew.

He shrugged, "You get used to it. Mom and Frank can't go a half hour without answering or making a phone call. It's like their fingers twitch if they aren't talking on some cellular device about Mal."

"It's all about Mal here, isn't it?" I muttered, not expecting Matthew to really answer. It wasn't a real question, anyway. It was more of a comment for him to agree to, or to leave in the air. Instead, Matthew surprised me.

"You know, it always has been about her. Bobby and I grew up with everything being about Mom's work. Then one day our lives literally turned into her work. We moved in, and we grew up with it. Mal has been the center of our lives for years. It wasn't as bad when she was only doing commercials, but once she started singing, her acting career took off. She became popular, and we saw less and less of our mom. Basically, the busier Mal got, the busier my mom got."

It was like the whole picture was being revealed now. Mal had been in Matthew and Bobby's lives for years. Long enough for them to see her grow up in her fame, and long enough for my Dad and Sav to have been together for a long time.

I wondered briefly if they had had a relationship for all this time, too. When had their relationship began? I pushed away the thought that they had been together since my dad and Mal moved to LA- because he was still with my mom at that point.

~oOo~

I spent the night on a couch in Mal's room. She had gone to bed early, still "not feeling well." I hadn't seen her since she screamed at me to get out, and when I came in for bed, she was asleep with a sleeping mask over her eyes, surrounded by fluffy pillows in her California king-sized bed. There was a pillow and a comforter folded up together on the couch, a bottle of water on the coffee table, and a sleeping mask laying on the arm of the couch.

Despite my annoyance at having to stay on a couch, it was the most comfortable couch I had ever laid down on. I immediately sank into the cushions and pulled the comforter over my body. I realized how tired I was, and I thought about how busy the day had been. When I closed my eyes, I thought of Percy.

How could he? He was still with my sister, and though he had been honest on the plane and said he was back and forth with his girlfriend a lot, I still couldn't stop thinking about the connection we had on the plane. We had kissed, and I guess it could have been me, but I felt something with him. It had felt like a spark, something _real_.

I rolled over in the darkness, trying to piece together why it hurt so much. I knew that I would never see him again on the plane. I knew that we wouldn't be a real thing, which made saying goodbye so easy. I had this idea, I guess, that we had a real connection, and that I had him for myself. He was somebody I didn't have to share with my sister…

For a short while, anyway.

I squeezed my eyes closed and told myself that it was done and over with now, though. I was done with Percy, and if he wanted Mal, he could have her.

He just couldn't have us both. I wouldn't let him hurt me.

~oOo~

The next morning, I woke up to an empty room. One peek towards Mal's bed told me that she wasn't in it. The bed was made, all the fluffy pillows were stacked neatly, and the curtains were drawn. Sunlight streamed through the windows, lighting up the whole room. The sunlight bounced off the glass coffee table. I sat up and drank the entire water bottle that I found last night.

I felt weird about leaving the comforter I had slept with all balled up on the couch, so after I folded it neatly, I stacked it under my borrowed pillow and made my way to the kitchen downstairs.

My growling stomach lead the way to the kitchen, my feet remembering the pathway from the tour the day before. The house sounded empty, the only sounds coming from my bare feet on the marble floors. The closer I got to the kitchen, though, I realized that I could hear somebody rummaging around.

"Hello?" I said, turning the corner into the kitchen. I stopped in my tracks when I saw who was making the noise. "What are you doing here?"

"Annabeth," Percy smirked at me from the kitchen counter. He was shirtless, his bare chest mocking me. I looked away quickly, and he dipped a spoon into a bowl of cereal and raised a challenging eyebrow at me, almost like he dared me to fight him. "Good morning."

I tugged the hem of my pajama shorts down my leg a bit, aware of how short they were. "You must've misheard me. I didn't greet you, I asked you what you were doing here."

Percy coughed and put his spoon down on the counter next to his cereal bowl. After he took a long moment to take a sip of his orange juice, he settled back into his chair and crossed his arms over his bare chest. I tore my eyes away from his arms, trying really hard not to stare at the way his upper arms bulged around his muscles. "I'm eating breakfast. Is that okay?"

He was definitely mocking me. I couldn't tell him no, it wasn't okay, because it wasn't exactly my house. I was a guest here just as much as he was. "So you're staying, then? With Mal?" I crossed my arms over my own chest, mirroring him. I tried to busy myself with finding breakfast, something that was seeming to be a hard job in such a huge kitchen.

Still, I wanted an answer, and Percy seemed to be taking his sweet time with giving me one. I opened the fridge adjacent to Percy, doing my best to act casual while waiting for his answer.

"Yeah," He said after what felt like an eternity. I felt my breath hitch.

I spun around, a carton of almond milk in my hand. "Is this some kind of joke?" I blurted at him, feeling my face heat up. "You really don't care, do you?"

"Don't care?" He sat up in his barstool, bristling, "What do you mean?"

"I just thought you were somebody different," I scoffed, opening a cabinet and pulling out a cup. I slowly poured milk in while shaking my head. "You told me you were sick of going back and forth. I was thinking about it last night, and I can't come up with any explanation for why you're the way you are. You keep screwing around with her, going back and forth, yet you're okay with screwing around with some stranger on a plane?"

"It isn't like that," Percy shook his head at me, "You don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't love her," I said, "If you loved her, you wouldn't feel this way. If she loved you, you wouldn't feel this way!"

"Why do you care so much?" Percy slid off the barstool and sauntered over to me. I gripped the cup of almond milk in my hand and tried not to shake. He stood over me, the smell of sweat on his skin. I hated how I didn't find it unattractive. I wasn't even disgusted; instead, I found myself wondering if he had worked out that morning, and what he had done. Did he run? Olivia wagged her eyebrows, clearly interested in what made the boy sweat. Lydia wasn't around.

"I don't," I protested, "I don't care at all about your relationship with Mal. It just proves my theory."

"What's your theory?" He asked, his eyes flicking to the glass of milk I gripped in my hand. I lifted it to my lips and sipped quickly before answering, trying to stall while I thought about what I'd say.

"That love doesn't exist, and if it does, it doesn't last." I replied, "It's never real. Somebody is always going to love the other person more… there's no such thing as a mutual love. If you loved Mal, you wouldn't screw around with her feelings, and if she loved you, she'd leave you. There's no way you guys are happy going back and forth constantly."

My insides were shaking. I was so overwhelmed, and so amazed by how calm and collected my words seemed to spill out. They almost sounded rehearsed, like I had thought that through before. Part of me wanted to take it back, though, and admit that though I'd like the idea of being in love someday, it seemed like it would never happen.

"You have a really screwed up vision of what love is," Percy shook his head and backed off, running his hand through his hair. He leaned against the counter opposite from me and looked at me, concern in his eyes. "Love isn't some passionate, I'll-buy-you-the-world, simple romance you see on TV or read about in _Twilight_. Love is devotion, and though sometimes you have real world interventions like infidelity and problems, you continue to work through those difficulties with your partner. Love is knowing that even though your girlfriend cheated on you, you couldn't live without her in your life. I'd rather work through heartache seventy times over than live without Mal in my life. She's my best friend, and yeah, we've hurt each other, but just _leaving_ isn't easy.

"We both screw around with each other's feelings, but it isn't like you can help that. That's the way humans are made. We both overthink things, and our feelings get hurt. Yeah, she could easily leave me, too, and decide that this isn't worth it, but she hasn't, and frankly… Annabeth, it's none of your damn business." He seemed to be getting fired up throughout the conversation, finally ending with his arms crossed over his chest again. "If you try to say it is your business because I kissed you, or something stupid like that, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it, but like I said, the real world gets in the way sometimes. I think you are an amazing person and I was really attracted to you, but I love Mal, and I plan on sticking around for a while."

My mouth dropped open. "You're a real ass," I shook my head and put my glass down on the countertop. It made a loud noise when I slammed it down, but it didn't break. "You were 'really attracted' to me, huh? You 'really love' Mal, huh?"

Percy rubbed at his temples. "I still don't get why you're so hung up over this! I do! I love her! Sometimes things end right, Annabeth! Not everything is going to end in a shit show like your parents' marriage! If that's why you don't believe in love or whatever, that's your own fault!"

I raised my eyebrows, suddenly pissed. He had no right! I felt my cheeks heat up. "You fucking psycho-!"

"Hear me out," Percy raised his voice so he could be heard over the beginning of my rant, "You can't keep deciding that life sucks because your past was crap! Your parents screwed up, and they didn't work out. It happens, Annabeth! Sometimes people aren't what they seem, but love is real. You just haven't found it yet… maybe if you'd give people a chance instead of bitching out at them for every little thing you'd see it's all around you-,"

I cut him off by slapping him. I lunged at him, reaching up on my tiptoes and rearing my hand back. He tried to catch my hand once he realized what I was doing, but he was too late. I slapped him hard. Before he could react, though, the booming voice of Travis interrupted.

"What in the hell is going on in here?" The bodyguard stomped in and came between us. Percy was seething, his hand coming up to cradle his jaw. My chest was rising and falling in absolute fury, my gaze fixed on Percy. When neither of us answered, Travis shouted again. "Answer me! What is going on?"

"Nothing," Percy growled, glaring at me. "Nothing is going on, and nothing should've ever went on."

And just like that, I knew his words had a deeper meaning. His regret was evident, and it was obvious he wasn't leaving Mal.

"Get out of here, man," Travis glared at Percy, "I don't know what's going on, but it would be a good idea for you to calm down."

Percy grabbed his cereal bowl and scooped up his spoon, turning away from me. "Right," He huffed, "I'll do that."

Then he was gone, and Travis turned to me, his eyes wide. "You haven't even been here for twenty-four hours and you're already attacking Mal's boyfriend. What the hell is going on?"

"Like he said, nothing," I grabbed my milk and turned away. "And nothing should've ever went on."


	4. Sometimes You Have To Decide

Sometimes Things End Right

Chapter 4

Percy

The next few days were hell. I was in the middle of renovating my apartment, reading scripts for potential characters to audition for, and answering phone calls from my agent. I was still furious about my last encounter with Annabeth, and since Mal was busy with her own new movie's filming schedule, I had no reason to go back to the Chase household.

"Percy, honey," my grandmother called from the living room. "Can you come here for a second?"

I slipped the hammer I was holding into the apron around my waist. I had been hammering a few nails in the cabinets of the kitchen. I pulled the neck of my t-shirt so that I could wipe the sweat on my upper lip.

"Yeah," I said, stepping over sawdust and avoiding nails that had fallen onto the tiled floor.

My whole apartment was a wreck. I had recently invested in the four apartments on the top floor of the building; my plan had been to knock down some walls, expand a few rooms, and make the place more of a condo. It was taking a lot longer than I had planned, though, and the contractors I hired weren't worth the money I was paying them. Luckily, I had learned a few things from them, though, and I was able to work on small projects myself.

If it weren't for my grandmother, I would probably be a wreck.

She stood in the living room holding little slips of paint-covered cards up to the walls. One was a dark grey that reminded me of concrete, and the other one was a bit darker. I pursed my lips at the colors but focused my attention on her.

"Are those the colors you picked?" I asked carefully, leaning against the wall.

My grandmother was a tiny woman, but she was fierce as hell and had an imagination worth millions. She was my mother's mother, and though my mom never had much of a college education, my grandmother had excelled in the fine arts. She painted and sculpted as if her hands were blessed by Apollo, the Greek god of the arts, himself.

Still, I looked at the two colors with distaste.

"Aren't they lovely?" She compared both colors side by side against the wall. "I was hoping you could pick up a sample of both for me from town. I would like to paint them and then pick."

"Do you think we could look at colors with a bit more… blue? Maybe we could get some green in there," I reached over and pointed to the wall. The walls were a weird shade of coral; the previous owners of the apartment space we were standing in loved different shades of pink. "I like blue."

My grandmother pursed her lips at me and shook her head. "This grey color will go really nice with the furniture. You don't want to do navy or green, I promise. It will look more sophisticated."

My head started to pound and I shook my head. I decided it wasn't worth arguing about. "You know, I trust your opinion. I'll go get those paint cans for you." I sighed and half-smiled at her.

She saw right through me, though. She crossed her arms and stuck her foot out, tapping it against the linoleum floor where we had pulled up the carpet. "Perseus, what is going on? You don't look too thrilled."

"I don't know," I groaned, reaching up and tugging at my hair. I flattened my back against the wall and bumped my head against it. "It's not you, I swear. I really do trust your opinion; if you think the grey looks good, I'll go get the paint."

She stared at me, quietly assessing me. I peeked open one eye and stared back at her. She had chocolate brown eyes, just like my mother. It was wild how much we didn't look alike; the only feature we had in common was our messy hair. My grandmother's short locks stood up in different directions; for her, though, it worked. She looked like one of those crazy chickens on farms with her silver hair, but her kind eyes and dimpled smile made up for her crazy hair.

"Something else is bothering you, then," She insisted. Her foot still tapped on the floor, insisting that I provide her with something.

"I don't know," I replied, still shaking my head. I immediately thought of Annabeth and our fight.

Then I cursed myself for thinking about her again.

"Is it Mal?" My grandmother asked. She gave me a look that said I-won't-let-you-go-until-you-answer-me. "What has she done now? Have you two broken up again?"

"No," I sighed. I slid down the wall until I was seated on the floor and my legs were bent in front of me. "We didn't break up. We got back together, actually."

She gave me a look with both her eyebrows raised. I knew that meant for me to continue.

"I think I messed up," I admitted, staring at the floor. There were little patches of glue where the old landlord had glued pieces of the carpet to the linoleum. I used the toe of my shoe to peel it. "I thought I was going back to her because I loved her. I thought I was doing the right thing."

"What makes you think you did the wrong thing?" She wondered, easing herself down so that she sat next to me. She sat cross-legged, making sure not to sit in any sawdust.

I watched her dust off the leg of her sweatpants while I thought about Mal. "I don't really know. I mean, she's different. There's stuff going on with her that we don't talk about. There's something missing, too. We don't talk like we used to, and neither of us are the same people we were when we were nineteen. I mean, I'm twenty-three and I'm building a huge-ass condo-,"

"Percy," My grandmother grunted disapprovingly.

"Sorry," I muttered, "I'm building this condo for a family one day, you know? This neighborhood is really nice, and my career is finally taking off… it just makes me wonder, who am I going to spend the rest of my life with? When I picture Mal, I don't know if I see the same future I used to see with her."

My grandmother nodded, but she didn't say anything. She reached over and patted my leg, but I wasn't done.

"Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. I mean, I can usually picture things that work out. Like, when I think of doing a movie, I can picture myself memorizing scripts for it. When I think of my family, I can picture myself meeting my father one day. When I think of marrying Mal, though… I don't see it.

"I don't know if I even want to try anymore with her. It seems like no matter how many times we try again, there's always something missing. Like I said, we just aren't the same anymore. When I think of her with another guy…"

My hand had trailed to the hammer in my apron pocket. I gripped it tightly and shook my head. Finally, I released it and squeezed my eyes shut.

"I get so mad," I whispered. "I get so angry, but not because I'm jealous. I get angry because I trusted her and I _know_ what we had used to be real, but she's so willing to throw it all away."

Everything got quiet after that. My grandmother patted my leg, encouraging me to continue, but I was done. When she finally spoke, it wasn't what I expected.

"Your parents went through something like this," She said, her eyebrows crinkling. She looked up, almost like she was staring at the ceiling, but I knew she was thinking.

"My parents?" I asked, feeling like I was a kid again. I had never met my father, and it felt like I would never get enough information about him. I remembered growing up asking questions about him, but never getting much of an answer from anybody.

"Mm-hmm," She nodded, "Oh, Sally _loved_ your father. She thought that man walked on water."

I stared at her, waiting for more.

"They fought a lot, though. He was never in her life for long periods of time; she only came around during the summer, and he had other girlfriends during the school years. Oh, she _hated_ him for it. She eventually learned that he would never be able to fully commit to her and she moved on."

"S-she did?" I asked, furrowing my brows.

"She claimed she did," My grandmother rolled her eyes. "The very next month, though, she found out she was pregnant with you."

"She knew she was having his baby and he still didn't try to stay with her?" I asked, surprised. I had never heard this part of the story before. To be honest, I had always assumed that my mother had been the one to leave my father because she didn't want to live in California. I knew he was from California, and I knew my mother hated this place, but I never knew the whole story.

"Percy, baby, I don't know that he knew about you until it was too late," She sighed. "Sally told your dad she didn't want him to have any part in your life. It got really ugly."

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused. "What happened?"

I was eager to finally hear more information about my father. The more in-depth we got about my dad, though, the more my grandmother was becoming elusive.

"Oh, she just insisted that he stay away. I know she found out that he was married to another woman by the time she had you… He sent in payments until you were eighteen, but you knew that already…"

She drifted off, biting on her lip to remember. "Anyway, it didn't work out between your parents. Your mother finally found Paul and married him, and if you ask me, she should have found him a long, long time ago… but then we wouldn't have you."

"Do you think that if my mom had been honest with my dad…" I trailed off, not knowing how to finish my sentence.

My grandmother sighed. "I think their situation was a lot like yours, dear. She loved him so much, but she only loved the memory of what they used to be. It took her a really long time and a baby to realize that."

"A part of me wonders if they had just worked it out, though…"

"That's the same part of you that keeps trying to work it out with Mal." My grandmother said. "If they kept trying to work it out, they would have been miserable. Your mother would be raising a baby with a man she expected so much from, and he would never have been able to live up to those expectations because of a mistake he had made in the past."

She paused before continuing, "Now, I'm not saying that your father was a mistake, Percy. He taught her so much, and he gave us you. However, they were both young, and he dated around. I don't think he ever meant to cause so much pain, because he really was a good guy, but the real healing did not come until he was out of the picture."

I nodded and sighed again. I suddenly understood what she was telling me. I would never be able to heal until Mal was out of the picture. If our relationship was anything like my parents', it would never be successful.

I knew what I had to do.

"Thank you," I told her, reaching over to hug her. She patted my back and sighed.

"You're welcome," She said. "I wish that I could tell you more, sweetheart, but it's not my story to tell."

I nodded and pulled away. "I understand."

"Now, go pick up those paint samples!" She pushed herself off the floor and held both paint slips back up to the wall, almost like we had never sat down and had the long discussion.

~oOo~

The next morning I drove to Mal's.

I practiced what I would say the whole ride there. It was the first time I was more focused on Mal instead of Annabeth.

To be honest, I wasn't even thinking about Annabeth at all. I was thinking about Mal, and the first time we had met.

We were so young. I remember her wide eyes and her cautious smile when I first introduced myself. We were both auditioning for a commercial, nothing big, and we were in a long line packed with other people that were much more talented than we were. Her grey eyes were astonishing, but they were more blue than the sad, dull color that they seemed to be now. She looked uncomfortable in her business outfit, and she rocked nervously in her heels.

I remember seeing her in the hallway after the audition. She was crying because she hadn't gotten it, and I asked her if she wanted to go get a milkshake to make up for it, because I had not gotten the part, either. She had surprised me when she was yes, and had surprised me even more when she grabbed my hand at the diner we went to. Later that night she got a call back from the director of the commercial, and they offered her the part. She was so excited that she threw her arms around me, and it was the first time I realized I never wanted to let go of her.

That had been so long ago, though. It was almost three and a half years ago.

I thought about her now, with hollowed eyes. Her eyes had turned sad, our conversations had lost its warmth, and all we did to reconnect was have sex.

I wondered when our relationship had become strictly physical, and I wondered if she was seeking other people out because I had done something wrong.

I frowned when I pulled into her driveway. What if that was it? What if she wasn't having feelings for me anymore so she was looking for a way to connect with somebody else? What if she still loved me, but she didn't love me romantically anymore?

I thought about this as I entered the house. It was almost empty, and the only sounds were coming from behind the closed door of the offices. I walked past them, though, and headed up to Mal's room.

I wasn't sure if she was even there, but I decided that I would wait on her until she came home. I rehearsed what I would say in my head.

 _I can't keep doing this._

 _We can't become my parents._

 _I'm not in love with you anymore._

She wasn't in her bedroom, so I checked her closet. She wasn't there, which sort of surprised me. If she wasn't in her room, she was more than likely to be in her closet, admiring her outfits or checking out her shoes.

I pulled out my phone and headed to the bathroom. As I pressed the call button, I wondered what else I would say to her when I saw her.

 _We tried so many times._

 _It won't ever be the same._

 _We can't do it anymore._

When I opened the door to her bathroom, though, all the thoughts disappeared.

They disappeared because what I saw made me scream.

"Mal- NO!" I flung the door open and ran to her.

Her body was folded as if she had been hunched over the toilet and had fallen onto the floor. Her knees were bruised and her fists were clenched, but what alarmed me the most was her wrists.

They were cut and blood was pooled all around her.

It was in her hair, staining her clothes, dribbling from the toilet seat. I screamed again, hoping to get the attention of one of the security guys from downstairs. Only when I heard their footsteps stomping up the stairs did I fall to my knees and start shaking her.

"Mal," I said, smoothing the hair back from her face. "Oh, my gosh, Mal…"

When I grabbed her wrist and felt for a pulse, her blood smeared on my own hands.

I leaned over to hold her head up when I saw it; it was in the trash can, as if she had just tossed it in. My jaw went slack and I felt my heart race.

I squeezed my eyes closed and felt the heat of my tears.

"HELP!" I screamed as the bathroom doors flew open and both security men raced in.

My eyes flicked back to the pregnancy test before I stood with her limp body in my arms.

 **So sorry for how LONG it took me to update, guys! I'm so sorry about that. I'm not even gonna list my excuses, but just know that I already understand I am the worst for keeping y'all hanging for so long.**

 **I plan on updating again soon because I knowwww this cliff hanger sucks.**

 **Let me know what you think.**

 **PEM**


	5. Sometimes You Just Have To Face It

Sometimes Things End Right

Chapter 5

Annabeth

My first few days of college were crazy. I had no idea where my classes were and I was too nervous to ask anybody for directions. The campus was huge, and students walked around with earphones in and zombie-like expressions. They carried huge backpacks on their shoulders and avoided eye contact with anybody they passed.

I was grateful that I had taken a picture of my schedule on my phone so that I did not look like some of the other freshmen walking around with their printed out schedules. I blended in with the students scrolling through Instagram and Twitter, thankfully.

Well, not as well as I thought.

I was zooming in on my twelve o'clock class on my phone one day after parking in the commuter's lot when I walked straight into somebody. It felt like I had the air knocked right out of me; I landed on my butt and my phone went flying across the concrete sidewalk. To make matters worse, the girl I ran into was glaring at me from where she had also landed on her butt.

Now, if you're wondering if I noticed the irony of me falling after bumping into somebody at a place I had never been to before, I did.

"I am so sorry," I said, standing up and wiping off the backs of my jeans. "Are you okay?"

I reached a hand out to the girl as she yanked her earplugs out of her ears. She had long, jet-black hair and a ton of piercings in her ears. She had a little lightening bolt earring in the cartilage and other tiny star studs going up the outer part of her ear. Her skin was tanned and she had freckles across the bridge of her nose. When our eyes met, she was glaring at me with angry sky-blue irises.

"Would you watch where you're going?!" She snapped, ignoring my hand and leaping to her combat-boot clad feet. She didn't bother to wipe the grass stains off her ripped black jeans; instead she reached down and started collecting stuff that had been knocked out of her hands.

"I'm sorry," I said, leaning down to help her. She had picked up my phone and I picked up her INTRO TO ARCHITECTURE textbook. The pages were all bent out of shape and the binding had been ripped, but I used my palm to straighten them out the best that I could.

"No way," She laughed, looking down at my phone screen. "You have your schedule saved as your background?"

"Um," I reached forward and took my phone from her. I could feel my face heating up. "I mean-,"

"That's genius," She laughed again, taking the textbook from my hands. "I wish I had thought of that."

"Oh," I felt the heat in my cheeks begin to die down.

"What's your name, anyway?" She asked, reaching down and picking up her backpack from the grass she had fallen in. The students walking on the sidewalk streamed around us as if we were just rocks in the river.

"I'm Annabeth," I said, still unsure if she was mad at me. I couldn't tell if her laughter was cold or if that was just her personality.

"I'm Thalia," She said, leaning over and slipping her textbook into her backpack. "Where are you headed? Any chance its Introduction to Architecture?"

I shook my head, "I already took that in high school for college credit."

She studied me, her eyes scanning mine briefly. Finally, as if she decided I wasn't lying, she nodded. "Alright, then. Well, I'll see you around, I guess."

Just then, a car pulled up next to the sidewalk. It was a large black Range Rover, and before the window even rolled down I knew it would be somebody affiliated with my sister.

"Annabeth?" Travis's head ducked so that he could see me through the tinted window.

"Holy shit," Thalia said from behind me. I didn't have to turn around to know her mouth was gaping open.

I turned around anyway and looked at her. Her eyebrows were raised and her mouth was open, just like I imagined it to be.

"Who is _that_?" She whispered fiercely.

"Um," I turned back to Travis and walked up to the car. "What?"

"Your sister was just admitted to the hospital. I was told to come and get you from school."

"By who?" I crossed my arms.

"Your father?" He looked uncomfortable, but he kept his face still.

"No thanks," I said, lowering my voice. "Look, I'm sorry that Mal is in the hospital or whatever, and I hope she's alright, but I have class in, like, fifteen minutes."

"Annabeth-,"

"I'll come by the hospital later," I promised. "Tell my father to text me updates if he needs to, but I can't just leave. I have a life too, you know."

I probably sounded like a major jerk, and honestly a part of me was truly concerned that she was in the hospital, but the bigger part of me had to stand my ground. My subconscious, Lydia, was urging me to keep it up. I knew that if I didn't start fighting for my freedom, I would always be treated like a kid, even if I was legally an adult.

And anyway, I really wanted people to get the idea that my life mattered, too.

"I guess it's your choice," Travis said. I couldn't see his eyes behind his dark sunglasses, but he nodded.

He rolled the window up and pulled away as soon as I stepped back from the Range Rover.

"Okay," Thalia walked forward and looped her arm through mine. "I don't know _who_ you are, but if you have guys that look like _that_ in your life, I want to get to know you."

~oOo~

By the time my twelve o'clock class ended, I had made a new friend, gotten her number, and had sat through my very first day of classes successfully.

Unfortunately, though, by the time my twelve o'clock had ended, my head was filled with all the different ways Mal could be admitted to the hospital. I wondered what was going on, and when I checked my phone there were several missed calls.

I hurried to the commuter parking lot towards the car I was borrowing from my father. I pressed my phone to my ear while I pulled out, not sure where I was going next.

"Annabeth," My dad answered, "Where are you?"

"I just left class," I said, "Where are you? Is Mal okay? Where should I meet you guys?"

"We're still at the hospital," He sighed, "You can come up here. The boys are still at school, so it's just Sav, Percy, and me… and of course Travis and Luke."

"I'll be there soon," I said, "Can you text me your location?"

"Yep, I'll drop a pin," He said, and then the line disconnected.

The whole way to the hospital I wondered what could have happened. By the time I was actually parking at the hospital, I was just hoping it wasn't bad.

As soon as I opened the doors to the hospital, I saw Percy. I didn't even think about how pissed at him I was, I just kept walking.

He had a phone pressed to his ear and he was talking lowly into it while he was looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows. When I walked past, though, he ended the call and followed me.

"Annabeth," He said, jogging to catch up. I stopped in front of the elevators and hit the "up" button several times. "Annabeth, wait."

I jiggled my leg anxiously, but turned to him.

That's when I noticed his appearance- and boy, did he look like shit.

"Good God," I gasped, reaching up to touch his face. At the last second, though, I caught myself and lowered my hand. "What happened to you?"

His eyes were red and there were dark circles under his eyes. His hair was literally everywhere, pointing in all different directions. The only thing that looked clean on him was the white t-shirt he wore, but his pants had blood streaks on them. A pair of sunglasses hung from the neck of his shirt.

Percy glanced around the area before reaching forward and grabbing my wrist. "It's been a long day. Where have you been?"

"School," I raised an eyebrow at him. "What happened? Does the paparazzi know? Why are you standing out here like a lunatic- anybody could see you!"

He scoffed and rolled his eyes just as the elevator doors opened. "Nobody expects her to be here. She has a shoot this afternoon, anyway, so the paparazzi don't know… I mean, I don't think they do…"

I stepped into the elevator and he followed, making sure to hit the "close" button before anybody else could hop in behind us. "Anyway, a lot of shit is going down right now."

"What happened?" I repeated, yanking my wrist from him and crossing my arms across my chest.

"She's in surgery right now. She's got a whole lot of stuff going on- the doctors had to hydrate her and do their best to get the drugs out of their system before they could admit her for surgery-,"

"Drugs?" I interrupted, "What drugs?"

"-and then they were having issues with blood loss-,"

"Blood loss?" I demanded. "What! Slow down!"

He leaned against the elevator wall and tugged on his hair. I realized that the reason why his hair was such a mess was because he pulled on it when he was stressed.

Mentally I had to block that out of the way before Olivia could pipe up about how sexy it could be.

He sighed and squeezed his eyes closed before starting over. "I found Mal in her bathroom. She had apparently gotten too high… slit her wrists…"

I felt my eyes widen.

What?!

"So Mal's on drugs?" I whispered furiously. "Did you know?!"

"I swear I didn't," Percy raised his hands in defense. "I didn't know she was at all. I didn't even know she cut herself. Apparently there's several scars? I don't know-,"

"You didn't know she cut herself?" I scoffed, "And there were several scars? Aren't you her freaking _boyfriend_?"

I felt tears beginning to swell at my eyes and my nose was beginning to burn. The elevator finally stopped and made a dinging noise to signify that we had arrived at the correct floor.

"Yes," He snapped, "I am, but that doesn't mean I'm her nurse, or her babysitter! I'm not with her every second of the day, you know. I don't know what the hell she does in her spare time."

"Some relationship, huh?" I shook my head. "You didn't even know your girlfriend was doing drugs."

"Keep your fucking volume down," Percy clasped his hand over my mouth. He looked out into the hallway before removing his hand and stepping out of the elevator. "People could hear you, you know."

"Asshole," I muttered under my breath. "What was she on, anyway?"

"Coke," He whispered back to me. "The police found a stash of it under her sink."

I breathed in and shook my head. "Jesus."

"There was another thing…" Percy came to a stop right outside a hospital door. I saw Travis and a man that I had never seen before standing guard across the hallway, but they pretended not to listen to Percy's and my conversation. "Annabeth, she's-,"

Just then, the door opened and my dad poked his head out.

"Come in," He waved us forward, "Don't hang out in the hallway, I don't want anybody seeing either of you and thinking that Mal may be here…"

So I walked inside, cutting Percy off and preparing myself for what I would see.

Turns out, I didn't have to prepare myself for much, because Mal wasn't even in the hospital bed.

"Where is she?" I asked to no one in particular, though the room seemed to be packed.

Sav sat in the corner of the room in a plastic chair with her leg crossed over her knee. A magazine was folded over and she seemed to be reading a paparazzi highlight. Next to her sat Luke, who was wearing his usual black suit pants, but had taken his jacket off. It hung over the back of the chair and he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. Once Dad closed the door, he leaned against the wall next to Sav and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Percy sat in the only other available seat across from the empty hospital bed.

The room was so tiny, and not at all what I expected a celebrity like Mal to be staying in. The bed wasn't made- in fact, there were no sheets on it at all. Even the window was tiny; it was squished and rectangular, with a blind pulled over the glass so it would be hard to see into.

"Your sister is still in surgery," Dad replied. "I called your mom not too long ago. She's heading up here on the next flight in."

It took a second for that information to register. "Mom? Mom's coming here?"

My immediate reaction was to look at Sav. I couldn't give you a direct answer for why, but when I looked at her, she didn't have much of a reaction. She just flipped her magazine page.

"Sav and I agreed that this was a big enough deal to include your mother," Dad nodded. "Athena said she would arrive here at about five this afternoon."

"Oh, God," I backed up until I was against the wall next to Percy's chair. I sank to the floor and propped my elbows on my knees to support my head. "So this is really serious?"

A knock at the door interrupted our conversation. The door opened again, and since the room was so small I had to move my knees so that it wouldn't hit them. A woman in scrubs smiled politely at each of us in the room before unfolding a binder in her hands.

"Good afternoon," She said, "We are about to bring Malcolm Chase back from surgery, but we decided to move her to a room with a bit more space. I'm assuming that each of you will be staying for a while, hmmm?"

"Yes," Percy stood up. "I mean, at least four of us are."

I looked around the room, unsure which of us Percy was excluding. Finally I realized he was referring to Luke, who suddenly looked uncomfortable. His cheeks were pink and he was fiddling with his suit jacket- I had never seen somebody that looked so masculine look so unsure of himself.

I wondered why he was inside the room, anyway. What was going on with that?

"Malcolm will be moved to the room down the hall from here," The nurse said, ignoring Percy's comment. "She will be allowed three visitors at a time, but we were able to block off the room next door for more, ah, privacy. The hospital does understand the situation of housing a celebrity from the paparazzi, as you have expressed your concerns, but we have decided that in order for her to heal properly, we will still be upholding the three-visitors policy."

"Sure," Dad nodded, having already put his phone away. "Whatever is best for Mal."

"Would you prefer the patient to be referred to as Mal or Malcolm?" The nurse asked, pulling a pen from her pocket to jot something down on the chart inside the binder that she held. "Her birth certificate says Malcolm, so our staff has been referring to her as so. Mainly it was for confidentiality purposes; we do have a couple of interns who may get a bit… excited… if they heard there was a celebrity present."

"Is my daughter safe?" Dad cocked an eyebrow.

"Of course, sir," The nurse said hurriedly. "I never meant to insinuate that she wasn't safe! Your daughter's treatment and even the fact that she is here is confidential under the HIPPA law. None of her records will be shared, and if you wish, we have ways to keep her way under the radar here."

"That would be magical," Sav said, standing and putting away her magazine. "Now, will you show us to the new room?"

I followed behind Dad and Sav to the room that Mal was just moved to. Hearing the nurses refer to my older sister as Malcolm was a tiny comic relief, though, because the story of how she got her name was still funny to me.

I remembered the story that Mom told me, about how she thought that her firstborn would be a male because she was told an old legend about how to discover the sex of your baby without a doctor's help. She read all these baby books and decided that her baby was definitely a boy, and that she would name him Malcolm after her late grandfather. When the baby was born, though, it was a girl and Mom had to do a quick name change. It ended up sticking, and everybody thought it was cute.

"How is she?" Luke asked the nurse from behind me. He was fidgeting with his watch and twisting it around his hand. The body guards walked behind him, flicking their eyes from him to my dad.

"None of your damn business," Percy snapped back at him. He walked beside me, but not on purpose. It was more with the intention of making it to Mal's room, I assume.

"What's going on with you two?" I asked, noticing the hostility in Percy's voice.

"She's in here," The nurse stopped at the last door on the hall. She opened the door and held it open with her arm. "I'm assuming that the mother and father will visit first? Maybe the baby's father, also?"

 _Baby's father?_

What?

"Mother?" I questioned, "Sav isn't her mother. Mal's mother is coming this afternoon."

"Yes, we will be visiting first," Dad stepped past the confused nurse. He held Sav's hand and pulled her in behind him.

The body guards both took their places on the wall opposite of the door, standing rock still. Luke stood next to Percy, though, avoiding eye contact.

Baby's father.

What baby?

"She is only allowed one more visitor, but the room next door is vacant for you to wait in," The nurse offered nervously. She pointed to the open door and one of the bodyguards scooted down the wall a little. He stopped when he was directly between each room.

"I'll go," Luke stepped into the room before Percy could stop him. I frowned, wishing I had taken the initiative before he had.

"What the hell is going on?" I demanded, turning to Percy. "I feel so left out."

Percy seemed to be fuming and didn't respond to my question. Instead, he marched past me and basically stomped into the visiting room that was blocked off for my family.

I followed, leaving the nurse behind.

"Percy! Dammit, answer me," I closed the door behind me so that nobody would come in behind us.

"Mal is pregnant," Percy waved his hand toward the direction of Mal's hospital room. "Okay? She's pregnant- or, at least, was. I don't know if the baby made it, or whatever."

I blinked back at him, not really expecting that answer.

Well, I mean, when I heard baby's father, I guess my subconscious kind of knew, but I didn't really give it time to register. I guess I didn't think it was possible.

But why the hell wouldn't it be possible?

"You got her pregnant?" I crossed my arms over my chest. "You really got her pregnant?"

Percy didn't say anything. He just sat in one of the empty chairs and rested his head in his hands.

"Percy," I could feel my eyes burning again.

Why the hell was I crying?

I could feel the anger in my chest, tightening and squeezing hard. I was angry, I was upset, and I didn't even have a good solution for why I was feeling this way.

 _He's not your boyfriend, Annabeth. He doesn't owe you anything._

Lydia was being a huge bitch in my head, reminding me of a fact I already knew.

 _Oh, but he lead Annabeth on. He kind of rocked her world on that plane…_

I wanted to scream at Olivia that she was wrong, and that it wasn't true, but I would be lying.

Why was I so caught up over him?!

"It's not mine," Percy finally answered. He looked up at me, his eyes even more red than before. He pulled at his hair angrily and stood up.

He seemed so much taller then, and his fists seemed larger. His anger rolled off him like waves, so much that it actually frightened me. I stepped away from him, backing into a chair.

"It's not my baby because we haven't had sex in months," Percy growled. "It's not my baby because she's been fucking the body guard for almost a year now!"

"Luke?" I asked, sitting down. "She's having Luke's baby?"

"She had an affair with him the first time," Percy shouted, "When I found out she cheated, though, she begged me to come back. We fought so much, and I never knew who it was. I didn't _want_ to know. She just promised that it wouldn't happen again."

I didn't say anything. I just sat there and let it all sink in.

 _Holy shit._

 _This is not good._

"Obviously it happened again," I waved my hand in the direction of her room, "She's pregnant."

Percy gave me a look and snarled, "No shit. Thanks for the update."

I didn't respond. I just kept thinking about what this would mean.

Would the baby be hurt if she was doing drugs?

Would she even still have the baby?

Why did she slit her wrists?

"She wanted to die?" I asked in a much quieter voice.

Percy sighed and took a seat and hung his head without answering. He just continued to run his fingers through his hair.

I imagined my sister, scared and feeling alone. Did she try to kill herself because she didn't want to be alive anymore? Was she scared of what Percy would say? Was she scared of losing him? Was she scared of how it would hurt her reputation?

I didn't have any answers.

Suddenly I realized that I cared more about Mal than I let on.

I mean, sure, I didn't know her all that well, and I did still sort of blame her for moving my dad away from home, but she was still my _sister_.

"I was going to break up with her for good when I found her," Percy's voice dissipated my thoughts.

"What?" I looked at him. He had stopped pulling his hair and was just hanging his head then.

"I had a talk with my-," Percy paused, and then started over after clearing his throat. "I realized that I never gave myself the chance to get over her. I only kept hurting myself and her by allowing our relationship to continue. Neither of us would be able to heal if we were still leading each other on."

I stared at him.

 _How did that take him so long to realize?_

How could he be so dense?

I guess, though, if I had the pressures of being a celebrity, I wouldn't want another ounce of stress added on to my life. As much as Percy pissed me off, I'm sure that there was a reason why Mal couldn't let him go. I'm sure there was a reason why he couldn't let Mal go, either.

"She was your comfort," I reached over and patted his knee.

Percy sat up and looked at me with furrowed eyebrows. "I think I finally understand. For a long time I was so angry at you- at her, at the whole situation. I didn't understand how you could claim to love each other but then be so toxic. I never quite got how you could intentionally go after me, knowing that you would end up right back with her afterwards."

Percy opened his mouth to protest, but I continued.

"I mean, you told me before, but I guess it's just now sinking in. She's your comfort. She's all you knew. Mal has this insane life, filled with concerts and fittings, photo shoots and movie sets. She has this ever-changing world, and nothing in it is constant, you know? I'm sure the same thing goes for you, too." I removed my hand from his knee and sighed. "The one thing you could control was each other, even if it meant pain. When things started going to shit, you were afraid of losing the one thing you could actually control. The same thing goes for her- she didn't want to lose her grip. You're her grip."

Percy stared at me.

He stared at me for so long that I began to feel uncomfortable with my realization. Had I been wrong? Did I misinterpret the situation?

"Or whatever," I muttered, looking away. "That's just what I thought, anyway."

He cleared his throat, finally speaking up. "No, that's right. I just never really thought of it that way. I just always thought that, you know, she's been through everything with me. I mean, I love her, but I'm not _in love_ with her. It took me a long time to realize that, and I guess when I finally did, I wasn't ready to accept it. She's been a huge part of my life for such a long time that I'm not sure what it'll look like when she's not in it anymore."

I nodded as we made eye contact.

His eyes were so, so green. They weren't the usual confident, challenging, smirk-y green, though. They were weary, trusting, and vulnerable.

Percy was opening up to me, and his eyes held so much truth.

 _God, help me._

I looked away and bit my lip.

"You're going to be okay, Percy," I whispered. "It's going to be okay."

It was a long time before he spoke again. "Yeah, I think so."

 **SO SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG FOR AN UPDATE!  
please don't hate me.**

 **Anyway, leave some love in the reviews- I wanna know what you think about... well, everything.**

 **PEM xoxo**


	6. Sometimes You Have To Be Honest

Sometimes Things End Right

Chapter 6

Percy

The next few days were hell.

I spent most of my time in the extra room next to Mal's wondering what the heck was I doing.

 _Why are you still here?_

Part of me was angry. Angry enough to get up and leave, never looking back. That part of me was furious for sticking around for so long; long enough for Mal to get pregnant and include me in this huge fiasco.

The other part of me was sad.

It was the same part of me that was holding me back from leaving; I was worried about her, and for all she knew, I had no idea that she was pregnant or why she had tried to commit suicide.

I hadn't had a chance to really visit with her. I mean, sure, I had gone in to see her, but every time she had either been asleep or a nurse was present.

I wasn't trying to air all of our dirty laundry out to the public.

Mal hadn't lost the baby. I would say that was good news, but the word "good" implied that everybody was happy. The news was more neutral, if you asked my opinion.

I could tell that she knew that I knew she was pregnant, because the few times I caught her awake, she just stared back at me with wide eyes. Her hands were constantly wrapped around her abdomen, as if protecting her tummy.

That ticked me off, honestly. Why would she need to protect her unborn baby from me? Shit, why would she need to protect it at all? She was the one that tried to hurt it in the first place.

And besides, I never gave her a reason to believe I would hurt her or a baby.

Speaking of the baby, Luke was ever-present.

He had been fired the day I found Mal. Not long after I found the pregnancy test and told both Travis and Luke the whole situation, Luke flipped. Of course, the ambulance had already been called, and there were blinking lights in the driveway, but Luke took it upon himself to do any kind of first aid he knew. He was absolutely going insane, and Travis was much more calm. Travis immediately placed a call to both Mal's father and Sav, and before I knew it we were following the ambulance in the Chase family's SUV.

It didn't take long for Mr. Chase to start questioning me. I filled him on everything, and when I confessed Mal's pregnancy test, the real questions began.

 _How could you let this happen?_

 _How could she get pregnant?_

 _Were you two not careful?_

 _Why did she cut herself?_

He was even more pissed off when I told him the baby wasn't mine.

 _We haven't slept together in months. It's been about four months since we…_

So whose was it?

If you've never had an uncomfortable conversation with your girlfriend's father about who she's been sleeping with lately, I would 100% advise you to never do it. Not only does his precious daughter come out to sound like a skank, but it's also incredibly embarrassing to have to admit that you were somehow not good enough for her to stick around. And when he asks the question about who the other guy is, you have to sit there like an idiot with his thumb up his butt and admit to not knowing that answer, either.

I think Mr. Chase finally started pitying me when I told him that Mal and I had been going through tough shit for so long that I couldn't remember the last time we were completely exclusive.

What really threw me for a loop, though, was when he suggested that it could be Luke.

 _You knew she had a thing for Luke this whole time?_

How could I not know?

I mean, now that I look back at it, there were times that he was really close to her, but I never registered it. He was supposed to be her bodyguard. He was employed by her family for her safety.

When I pointed this out to Mr. Chase, he was already fuming.

 _Son, don't you think I know that? He took advantage of her situation. He took advantage of her safety._

Before we were even completely out of the SUV, Mr. Chase was yelling over to the body guard's vehicle at Luke.

 _You're fired._

You'd think somebody's career would end with much more conversation.

Luke simply nodded, a swift movement of his head. That was all I needed to confirm everything. After that, everything sort of wrapped up on its own. I approached him, fully planning on a punch directly between the eyes, but unfortunately Travis was quicker.

 _"_ _Mr. Jackson, I would advise you not to," His hand was wrapped around my fist. He glanced around us and lowered his voice, "Look where you are. Not here."_

Luke was allowed to stick around after that because Mr. Chase pulled him away for a conversation that lasted an hour. Sav tended to the doctors and Travis went wherever they took Mal. I mostly stayed in the lobby of the hospital, only going up to Mal's room every thirty minutes or so for an update.

I couldn't stand to be in the same room as Luke.

 _I swear to God, when we aren't in public…_

However, I wasn't as angry at Luke anymore. I mean, how could I be? How could I act like this was completely and totally his fault? I knew good and well that it took two to make it happen, and Mal wasn't completely innocent in the situation, so why was I acting like she was? How could I claim that Luke took advantage over her if she was welcoming his advances?

My ego was completely hurt, too.

I hated to admit it, but my feelings were crushed. When I thought back to the first time Mal had cheated on me, I wondered what I did wrong. Why had she found somebody else attractive over me? What could I have done to make her stay?

Even though I knew I didn't want Mal anymore anyway, I still wished it had not have happened like this. I wished that I knew what I did wrong.

A lot of times Annabeth was sharing the extra room with me. She heard my groaning questions, and she patiently sat through my anger. She listened as I questioned myself many times, and she paid attention to me while I went on and on about how pitiful I was.

What I appreciated the most, though, was that she never tried to interrupt, she never tried to cheer me up, and she never told me that I was overreacting. Annabeth just let me rant, vent, and yell. She let me tear up, and she listened to each revelation that I had.

The only times she spoke up were when I really started hating on myself.

"I wish you wouldn't say that," She would whisper, but other than that, she wouldn't stop me.

If I mentioned something about not being good enough, she would simply shake her head, but she never stopped me.

I appreciated that she let me get it all out.

When I finally stopped, though, it was the end of the second day. It seems very dramatic to go two days of completely ranting, and I know that, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Of course, I'm not talking 48 hours of complete venting. There were times that I sat there silently, or I slept on the chair in the room. There were times Annabeth herself slept, or left for a class. It just took two days before I decided to drop the subject entirely, and it was because of Annabeth that I decided to.

I remember her looking up at me and finally saying, "Okay. You get twenty more minutes to be upset. You get to cuss, scream, lay Luke flat on his back for all you want. Hell, you can even leave here and never come back if you want. However you want to do it, you only get twenty more minutes."

This surprised me because she had been so patient for so long. I guess I should have expected her to get tired of it all, though. I was even more surprised when she continued.

"I'm not limiting you because I'm tired of hearing it," She shook her blonde head, "You'll never start to get over it if you continue to ride your anger. So here's what you're going to do, Percy. You get twenty minutes, and you can do whatever you want with those twenty minutes, but after that, you have to _do something about it_. You have to find a solution, or else you're just riding this huge wave of anger for no reason at all other than to keep fueling your fire."

So that's what I did. Annabeth set a timer on her phone for twenty minutes, and I punched a wall.

Which was a bit dramatic, I do agree, but my twenty minutes were pretty much up by then. My twenty minutes were actually up in about thirty seconds because that's how long it took for me to punch the wall and break my hand.

"Jesus, Percy," Annabeth stood and picked up the hospital phone in the room, "I didn't think you would actually- damn it."

The nurse showed up, but I didn't look at her while she checked my hand out. Instead, I thought of all the other ways I could have used my twenty minutes that didn't involve a broken hand.

"This is all covered by that HIPAA stuff, right?" I asked, scratching my head with my free hand. "You're not going to, like, say anything to anybody?"

She just looked at me incredulously.

"I had to ask," I mumbled.

So that's how I ended up with my hand wrapped in a cast and a very angry doctor. My manager was working on paying the hospital for the damages, which didn't cost as much as you'd think, and then he yelled at me to behave before hanging up on me.

"So, that was a great way to end your twenty minutes," Annabeth said when I saw her. I just rolled my eyes at her and sat in my chair.

There was a quick knock on the door before Luke poked his blonde head in.

"Uh, Jackson…" He cleared his throat, "I'm heading out. If you want, Mal is asking for you…"

He awkwardly held the door open for me while I struggled to get up from my chair. "Thanks," I snapped at him. "She kick you out?"

"Uh, no," Luke scratched his head uncomfortably. "I'm going by her house to get her a change of clothes. They're discharging her tonight."

I nodded, a new wave of anger washing over me. Luke had been fired. The only reason he would still be running her errands for her would be if he was doing it willingly. That meant she had asked him to do it.

I pushed past him and entered Mal's room.

She was alone, wrapped in hospital blankets. One leg stuck out, hanging over the side of the bed and swinging back and forth. My eyes softened at it.

"Too hot?" I asked, walking forward and grabbing her foot. "You always used to hang a leg out when you got too hot."

She half-smiled at me. I looked at her closely; she looked awful.

Mal's straight blonde hair was matted into a ponytail and hanging over her shoulder. Under her eyes were dark purple, and her skin was pale white. She wore her hospital night gown, but the neck wasn't tied so one of the paper sleeves kept falling off her shoulder.

I remembered a time when the sight of her bare shoulders would be enticing. Now, however, her fingers trembled as she tugged it back up into place. She sniffled and chewed on her lip.

I cleared my throat and decided to stop pitying her. Reaching behind me, I pulled a chair closer to the bed so I could sit down.

Mal struggled to sit up, her breath catching shakily when the tubes that were anchored to her hand by needle yanked.

"Hey, it's okay, you don't have to sit up," I reached towards her and gently took her hand in mine. I left my free, casted hand resting net to her arm. "Just relax."

Her stormy eyes didn't look as grey as usual. They had dulled to a pale wisp of what could be a trace of blue under heavy eyelids.

She didn't look anything like herself, and I wondered if it was because of the drugs. How long had she been doing them? How had I not noticed the change in her appearance? Her once tanned skin was pale and covered in goosebumps. Her once thick, blonde hair was frail and falling out- well, the hair that wasn't matted, that is. Mal's face even used to be heart-shaped with full cheeks, but now they seemed to be hollow and colorless.

"What happened to you?" I whispered, letting go of her hand to touch her face with my fingers. I softly caressed her, watching as she squeezed her eyes closed and tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," She croaked, "I'm so sorry…"

"Mal," I felt tears prick at my own eyes. What had happened to my best friend? When was I ever going to notice? "It's okay."

"I'm pregnant," Mal reached up and grabbed the hand that was against her face. When she moved her hand, tubes and her IV followed. She looked me in the eye and gripped my fingers tight. "It's Luke's."

"I know," I nodded, rubbing her hand with my thumb. I didn't offer anything else.

The weird thing is, in my head, I imagined that this would go so much differently. I imagined that I would storm in, demand answers, and then scoff at anything she said to me. I imagined I would say hurtful things to her just to try and crush her the way she crushed me. I imagined she would cry and I would laugh in her face. I imagined I would hate her guts.

"Do you hate me?" She asked, wiping tears away from her eyes.

I shook my head at her. "I don't," I was being honest. "I could never hate you, Mal."

"You're going to leave me," Mal sniffled, her breathing picking up to a shaking hyperventilation. "You're going to leave me and I'm going to be all alone with this baby…"

I heard her heart monitor pick up. I knew the nurse would bust up in here sooner or later if I didn't calm her down.

"Hey, hey," I squeezed her hand lightly, "Calm down, Mal. I need you to stay calm."

"H-how?" She croaked. Her shoulders began to shake as she cried, "I l-love you, P-Percy! You-you're going to… to l-leave and… and…"

"Please calm down," I begged, turning to watch her heart monitor rise. "If you don't calm down they're going to come in here."

"Tell me you won't l-leave," She begged, gripping my hand. "I'm sorry. I s-shouldn't have c-cheated-,"

"Mal," My voice rose, "Stop it. Please."

She quieted down to sniffles, but tears still ran down her face. Slowly, her monitor fell back to normal.

"I can't stay," I shook my head at her. "You're not happy. We aren't the same."

She didn't say anything.

"We're trying to make it work but it's tearing us apart. We aren't the same people that we used to be, Mal. I tried so hard to make it work, but I was only fooling myself. I wasn't being fair to you, either," I said, "I was leading you on when I knew in my heart that I stopped loving you a long time ago."

It hurt like hell to say it, but it was true. I felt my heart squeeze at my own words, and I watched as tears ran harder down her face.

"You stopped loving me, too," I told her. "We both know it. We just never had the guts to say it."

It was a long time before she finally spoke. By then, she tears had stopped streaming. Her sniffles hadn't gone, though.

"You're right," Mal said. "I just wish you were wrong."

I nodded, "Me too… I wish it had been different. I don't know how I could have fixed it, or what I could have done differently, though. I just wish the situation had been different."

"I wish it didn't end this way," Mal gestured to her belly. "I guess I owe you an explanation, huh?"

I shrugged. "I just hope you get help."

She nodded quickly. "I am," Mal said, "I promise. I'm going to this place in Georgia. It's in the mountains, and it's a private place. There's this nice doctor out there, and they only take around ten patients at a time. It's going to be very low-key."

"You're going to Georgia?" I asked, not expecting that at all.

"Yes," She said, "I've been doing drugs for about two months now. I don't think I'm addicted or anything, but I want to be clean for the baby…"

"Right," I said, looking down at her stomach. It was covered by blankets, so I couldn't see anything.

"I'm six weeks," Mal said, answering my unasked question. "You can barely tell. I don't have much of a bump, like, at all."

"You've always been super tiny," I noted.

She nodded. "I hope I get really big," She smiled, "I want to look like I swallowed a basketball."

"You will," I half-smiled back at her. "You'll waddle and have to wear sweatpants everywhere."

Her nose wrinkled at me and she laughed. "Oh, God."

When her laughter died down, she let go of my hand. "I really am sorry, Percy."

"I'm sorry, too," I told her. I sat back in my chair and sighed. "When do you leave for Georgia?"

"I'm leaving today." She said, watching me. "Luke's coming with me."

"That fast, huh," I commented.

Mal squirmed uncomfortably. "I think I'll really like him," She told me. "I mean, I always kind of liked him, but I never let myself think about a relationship with him. I never considered leaving you for him."

"You just wanted to sleep with him behind my back," I muttered.

She didn't respond to my comment. "Thank you for staying here." She said, "Dad told me you slept in the next room."

I nodded. "Annabeth did, too."

Mal was quiet for a moment before she responded. "I wish I knew Annabeth."

I felt my eyebrow raise.

"I don't know her at all," Mal said. "I remember when we were kids, but since she got here, I haven't really bothered to get to know her. She's my little sister, but she feels like a stranger."

"She cares for you. I think she's really confused about everything."

Mal watched me closely. "You must have spent a lot of time talking to my sister, huh."

I took a deep breath.

This was it. I had to tell her.

 _Well, here goes._

"I hooked up with Annabeth," I confessed, watching her closely for a reaction. "On the plane before she got here."

Mal blinked at me. I could physically _see_ the surprise wash over her face. Both of her eyebrows rose and she just kept blinking at me.

"What the hell," She sputtered.

"I didn't know who she was," I offered, "I didn't know she was your sister."

"That's bullshit," Mal's eyebrows drew together. "Percy, you're an idiot. She looks just like me!"

"No she doesn't," I argued, "You're taller. Your hair is straight and long."

"We have the same eyes and everything," Mal's voice rose. "She's my little sister, asshole!"

"Okay, hold on," I stood up, "What we're _not_ going to do is call _me_ the asshole. I didn't come in here calling you names, I would appreciate it if you would do the same for me."

"That was before I found out you hooked up with my little sister-," Mal growled.

"You literally _just_ said you don't know her-,"

"-we were _together_! You cheated on me with my little sister!"

"I did not," I rose my voice above hers. "We weren't together, and I didn't know she was your sister. Besides, I didn't kiss her to make you mad. I kissed her because I _liked_ her."

 _So that's where the hurtful words went._

I saw Mal's face go slack. "Get out."

"I didn't say that to make you mad," I sighed, "I told you because I wanted to be honest with you."

"Well, congrats. You were. Now get out." She snapped.

"Don't be mad at her," I said, making my way to the door. "She didn't know who I was, either."

"Yeah, well, she didn't bother to tell me when she _did_ know- and neither did you."

"Have a great time in Georgia," I told Mal, looking back at her one more time. "I really do wish you the best of luck."


	7. Sometimes You Get Asked Out

Sometimes Things End Right

Chapter 7

Annabeth

The three or so weeks were fairly normal.

Well, as normal as life could be when your sister is across the country, you barely know the people you are living with, and there are two random men following you around.

Since Mal left, my dad had gone to Georgia three times. As her manager, Sav had moved with her, but wasn't staying on the campus of the rehabilitation center Mal was residing in. The twins were staying with me at the house, but it wasn't like I saw them very often. Dad had hired a cook to come in and make dinner every night and to make sure there was always some sort of casserole in the fridge for lunch if anybody happened to be home. With the usual cleaning crew and the new chef, there wasn't much for me to do when I got home besides homework and sleep.

So I looked into new hobbies.

I even got a job at the school interning for the engineering department. It wasn't my ideal job, but it gave me an excuse to get to know a couple of professors closely and to make connections that would aide me in architecture one day if I chose to pursue that career.

It was one day during work that I met Will.

I was sitting in the intern workroom sketching out a project for class when he came in. He wore a white shirt under a jean jacket, dark green joggers and a pair of white sneakers. His blonde hair curled out from underneath a backwards navy ball cap.

As soon as I snapped out of staring at him, I nervously closed the sketchbook in front of me and smiled. "Hey, can I help you?"

He stood in the doorway, a burlap canvas backpack hanging from one shoulder. "Uh, yeah, actually. Is this where tutoring happens?"

I felt my eyebrows raise. "You're here for tutoring?"

His blonde eyes were so blue I could see the pigment from where I sat at my desk across the room. He glanced around, his eyes leaving mine. "Right. I was told by Dr. Nelson it was in here…"

"Right!" I stood up quickly. My knees hit the top of my desk and I bit my lip so I wouldn't curse. When I recovered, I noticed he was holding back laughter.

 _Sweet Jesus._

My subconscious Olivia was fanning herself while perching on the corner of the desk, her heeled feet swinging back and forth.

 _This man is super-hot._

His blonde eyebrows came together into a furrow but he didn't look concerned at all. Instead, laughter danced in his eyes and a small smile drew across his lips. His tongue stuck out a bit to moisten his bottom lip before it disappeared back into his smiling mouth. Then, he bit his bottom lip.

 _Shit._

"I'm Will," He came further into the room and reached his hand out to me, "It's nice to meet you, ah-,"

"Annabeth," I finished for him, coming out from behind my desk. I shook his hand and tucked a lock of curling hair behind my ear. I could feel my cheeks heating up. "My name is Annabeth."

His hands were large but thin. His fingers were long and nimble, and something about him reminded me of my old dentist, Dr. Beck.

"So, should I sit, or…" Will looked around the room again.

"Oh! Yes," I gestured to the round table in the middle of the room, "We can sit here."

"Have you done this before?" He asked me as he pulled a seat out and sat down. His voice was light and easy, not at all gruff. If anything, I would label the guy as having a polite and friendly tone.

 _Yeah, with a steaming, sexy appearance._

I mentally shooed Olivia away so I could at least try to focus.

"Yes," I pulled my rolling desk chair out from behind my desk and scooted over to the table. "I'm sorry, I wasn't really focused. You have my full attention now, though."

"Oh yeah?" He grinned before ducking down into his backpack, "What's on your mind?"

 _What a forward question to ask somebody you've just met._

"Nothing," I lied, changing the subject quickly. "What are we looking at here?"

"Biomedical engineering," He replied, opening his spiral notebook first, then pulling a thick textbook out of his backpack. It read 'Photovoltaic Systems' across the front. "I have it with Nelson."

"Yeah," I nodded, scooting the text closer to me. "What can I help you with?"

While we dove into the mechanics and physics of biomedical engineering, any thoughts of my subconscious, Olivia, slipped away. I focused on the work before me and even managed to help him with the questions he had.

Before I knew it, we had been sitting there for over an hour and my supervisor had appeared to lock up the office.

"Miss Chase," Dr. Ward smiled from the doorway, "You're still here?"

"Yeah," I looked up at him with a smile. "We were just finishing up."

"Ah, Mr. Solace!" Dr. Ward entered the room. "What a surprise! Two of my best students!"

"Hey, Dr. Weeks," Will greeted. He began packing up, "I just came by to see Dr. Nelson but I caught him on his way out the building. He sent me in to Annabeth here, and she helped me out."

"Well, she's one of our best, that's for sure," Dr. Ward looked at me fondly.

He was a short man that usually wore a sweater pulled over his button-down, pressed shirts and khaki slacks. He was my supervisor at the office and also my advisor for my major.

I blushed at his kind words and looked away from him. "Thanks, that means a lot."

"Of course, she is pretty young," Dr. Ward told Will. Will was done packing up by now and stood up with his backpack slung over his shoulder. "She's a first year, but she's got the brains of a senior. She came to us with so many credits that I thought she had transferred."

I blushed again but tried to cover it up by faking a cough and moving to collect my things from behind my desk.

"Anyways, Will, I'm glad you stopped by." Dr. Ward started to wander his way out of the office, "Come back anytime… glad to have you…"

Then he was gone and I pretended to busy myself with shutting down my desktop computer. Will shifted from one foot to the other, seemingly having something to say. I peeked up at him before anything ever came out of his mouth, though.

"Would you ever want to hang out sometime?" Will asked, rubbing the back of his neck. When he lifted his arm, his shirt pulled up a little to reveal a small sliver of skin. "I mean, outside of tutoring…"

"Sure," I said, probably way too fast. "That sounds like it would be fun."

"Oh yeah?" He grinned back at me. His blue eyes twinkled with the same dance as before. They were filled with so much joy. "Maybe we could get coffee or something sometime. You like coffee, right?"

"Sure," I walked around the front of my desk and leaned against it. "I like coffee."

"Could I have your number?" He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a black cell phone. "I could text you sometime, or…"

"I love texting!" I grabbed for my own phone, feeling super excited. I was probably way too eager.

 _Calm down, dude._

I closed my eyes and exhaled. "I mean, yeah. You can have my number."

He laughed, and I swear it sounded like some kind of musical instrument. "Hey, I'm glad you're excited. I'm excited, too."

I had already been blushing, but my face grew extra hot then. "Yeah?"

"Yes," Will said, coming forward. He slipped my phone out of my hand and punched in his number. Then, he called his phone from mine and slipped it back into my hand again.

As he backed out of the room, I raised the phone up to my ear. "Goodbye, Will."

When he disappeared around the corner, I could hear his voice both in the hall and through my phone's speaker.

"Goodbye, Annabeth… oh, and I'm so glad I met you."

I was glad that I met him, too.

~oOo~

Thalia and I had gotten close, too. She was actually really cool, although she wasn't an engineering major- which didn't matter, I had just thought from our first encounter that she was.

Turns out, Thalia was an exercise science major, she played volleyball on the college team, she lived in an apartment on campus as a student resident director, and she had a pet cat- which was very low-key, since she definitely wasn't supposed to have pets on campus.

I spent a lot of time in Thalia's apartment. My favorite part about her apartment was that it was meant for two students to live in, but since she was the student RD, nobody really wanted to live with her.

"I mean, it's like they think I'm going to be the bad guy," Thalia rolled her eyes one day while talking about it. She stood behind the kitchen counter across from me while pouring herself a cup of soda. "Joke's on them, though- when I confiscate their alcohol, I just keep it for myself. If anything, I'd be the person you'd _want_ to live with."

To prove her point she turned and opened a cabinet above her stove. Half-empty bottles of random assortments of alcohol were crowded inside. She selected a bottle of Captain Morgan rum that had less than a quarter of the liquid left and poured the rest into her drink.

"I'd offer you some, but you have to drive home," Thalia explained, placing the empty bottle in her sink. I knew she planned on cleaning it out, removing the label, and using it for a piece of artwork. "Not to mention you're underage…"

Her entire apartment had random bottles throughout it, some holding flowers and other random plants, some had been made into candles, some held sand, and some were even hanging from a bottle tree made of welded pipes and Christmas lights. The bottle tree was the centerpiece of her living room, taking up a whole corner of the room. The couch was in front of it, and the lights that were wrapped around it created an oddly appealing atmosphere.

Thalia made her way to the couch, only wearing a giant sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled to keep from sagging over her hands, a tiny pair of black shorts, and tall white socks that had sagged to her ankles. She looked extremely relaxed, but would probably be seen as frumpy by my sister's fashion consultant.

Thalia pulled a fuzzy blanket around her hips and sipped on her coke and rum while I made myself comfortable in the same armchair I always cozied up in.

"So, tell me more about this guy? Will?" She wagged her dark eyebrows at me.

"He's so sweet," I smiled, "We went to this coffee place and I let him order for me, because honestly I don't really drink coffee, I just said that I did because I wanted to hang out with him."

"What did he order for you?"

"It was like some kind of white chocolate thing? I don't know, it was really good, though." I told her, remembering how Will and I had sat at the coffee shop for hours just talking. "We spent forever talking about his family. He's from Colorado, he has two other brothers, one little sister, and his mom is pregnant."

"Sounds like fertility runs in the family," She giggled.

I blushed, "I guess so. His older brother and sister-in-law are pregnant, too."

"You know, I always thought it was weird when moms and daughters are pregnant at the same time," Thalia wrinkled her nose. "Thank God my mom had her tubes tied."

I laughed, "Why? Do you expect to be pregnant any time soon?"

"God, no," She shook her head. I almost thought the messy bun her hair was in was going to fall out because she had shaken her head so quickly. "I don't want kids. They ruin your body, your marriage, your life…"

I felt like I was always laughing with Thalia. "That's your choice, dude. I want kids one day, though."

"I know," She snorted, "You're, like, the epitome of an American Dream. America's sweetheart with curly blonde hair, wide doe eyes, probably going to marry that Will dude and produce two-to-three little butterballs-,"

"Okay, stop," I stopped her, waving my hand. "Okay, first of all, I do not have doe eyes. Second, I don't even know if Will and I are ever going to be serious like that. I just want to have kids because I feel like I could be a great mom, you know? I mean, I've seen bad parenting. My parents are a perfect example of it. I just want my own family to turn out normal, you know?"

Thalia was silent for a few moments. "Wow. Deep."

I felt her cat curling its body around my feet so I bent over to scoop him up. He was a fat orange cat with long hair named Sashy.

"I mean, I wasn't trying to be deep," I shrugged, "I just want one thing in my life not to be so messed up."

"Do you hear from Percy anymore?" Thalia asked me. I had told her about Percy, but not much at all. Basically I had just told her that we hooked up before we knew that Mal was in the picture for both of us.

Technically, though, that's all that _really_ happened. I just left out the magnetic attraction that I had to him, the emotional roller coaster that I constantly rode around him, and anything personal about Mal. I still had to be careful about what I told people because even though I had no doubts that Thalia would keep the information I told her to herself, the information wasn't mine to tell.

So anyway, Thalia only really knew that I had a major crush on Percy, my sister's boyfriend.

Well, ex-boyfriend.

Except Thalia didn't know why they broke up, she only knew that they weren't together anymore.

That much was public knowledge; it didn't take long before the paparazzi and magazines were taking pictures of Percy with some red headed girl. Apparently the papers were claiming that she was the new, up-and-coming "it girl" since Mal disappeared from the spotlight.

Mal had to give up the movie she had been working on, which really freaking sucks for Sav, according to Dad. It meant paying back a contract that she had signed, along with losing a great opportunity and tons of hours of filming. Apparently she only had about three more months of filming left and the director was super pissed at her for abandoning the project. I think Sav worked something out with the producer, though, and even brought in lawyers to keep everything under wraps about Mal's rehab. The whole situation was sticky since the family didn't really want to release any information to the public or even anybody without a privacy policy or something.

I don't know. It was all just words I didn't exactly understand, anyway.

"I don't really hear from him," I shook my head. "I mean, he texted me one time. He asked if he could come by the house and pick up his stuff from Mal's room, but then he never came."

"That sucks," Thalia said. "You two could've, like, picked up where you left off."

I shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, we really only kissed. I feel like it's weird between us. I was so mad at him for a long time, and I think now I'm kind of realizing that it was me being sort of dramatic. I mean, I was kind of acting like we were a bigger deal than we actually were."

She studied my face and drained the rest of her cup before speaking. "Yeah, but you said you two really connected. I mean, if you ask me, that's like giving you false hope."

"One spark between us doesn't mean a whole fire," I said. I could feel my heart squeeze so I didn't say much else.

Truthfully, I had kind of hoped there would be something between Percy and myself once Mal had left the picture. I know that was very selfish, but a part of me kind of expected my relationship with Percy to fall into place.

However, there wasn't much of a relationship with Percy to even go off of, I guess.

I had spent a lot of time thinking about it and replaying everything in my head; all the times we had gotten into arguments, play-by-plays of every conversation we had had, and each time I didn't come up with much about why I actually liked him other than the physical attraction and pull I had to him.

I mean, the guy had been a complete jerk to me when we first met in the airport, then he kissed me on a plane. Maybe whatever we had was meant to be a weird encounter that you kind of shove to the back of your brain and forget about.

Still, my subconscious Olivia kind of pouted when I had those thoughts.

 _He's more than that and you know it, Annabeth. I don't know exactly what his importance is, yet, but he's meant to be in your life somehow._

The thoughts like that were what made me still think of Percy. That was usually when Lydia, the more analytical part of my subconscious interfered.

 _There has to be some reason the fates brought you guys together, right? I mean, not to be super cliché, but what if he's some part of your destiny? I mean, God doesn't just put random people in your life that bring sparks and butterflies to your tummy for no reason._

When it all became too much, though, I focused on my architecture and civil engineering studies and tried really hard to put any thoughts of boys out of my head.

"Whatever you say," Thalia sensed that our conversation about Percy was coming to an end. "So, you're hanging out with Will again?"

"He's taking me to play mini golf on Friday," I nodded, rolling my eyes. "He said something about how dinner was too cliché, you couldn't have a real conversation in the movies, and he really didn't want to do anything boring like sit in his college dorm and play Fortnite while pretending like I enjoyed watching him game or whatever."

"If you had agreed to go watch him play his Xbox in his dorm room, I might have slapped you," Thalia giggled. "Literally nobody wants to sit on a futon and pretend they care about Xbox besides the guys that actually do it."

"Matthew and Bobby play that game," I said, "It's silly and they spend hours every night on it. But anyways, yeah, Will and I are going to golf."

"Well, make sure you fill me in on everything," She said, placing her empty cup on the floor next to her feet and laying down on the couch. "I'll have to live vicariously through you until somebody gets the balls to ask me out on a date."

I stood up, taking her preparations for a nap as my cue to leave. I dropped Sashy down on her lap and picked her cup up to take to the kitchen sink. "You'll get a date one day. If you want, I'll ask Will to set you up with one of his fraternity brothers and we can double date."

She opened one eye to peek at me, her nose screwed up in disgust. "A double date at the mini golf course? Ew, gross, no thanks."

And with that, I left her to nap on her couch with her cat.


	8. Sometimes People Move On

Sometimes Things End Right

Chapter 8

Percy

The first week without Mal in my life was kind of odd.

I mean, we had gone a week without seeing each other before, and I was okay with that part because the project that I had started really hit the ground running, but what really got me was the press. I guess they kind of caught on that we had split because I showed up to a couple events alone.

At first, there were just rumors that we were 'off' again. You know, the 'inside sources' would release false information like, "Oh, Percy and Mal are just taking a small break. She's actually looking into a vacation alone with just the two of them!" and crazy stuff like that. It was small stuff that I could just shrug off. I usually made it a rule not to speak to the press about my personal life, and besides, my manager usually handled anything I actually wanted released, anyway.

But during the end of week two, though, the filming for my newest project started. I was still pretty new to the acting business; most of my experience had been commercials, music videos and a handful of modeling shoots, so I wasn't very popular or famous. I usually winced at myself when I thought about it, but I was really only well-known for my relationship with Mal. It kind of sucked, but my manager welcomed it. He told me that I had to get my name out somehow, even if that meant dating a celebrity. It sounded very set up to me, but I found comfort in knowing that at least our relationship was real and I never used her to build up my image- even if my manager made me feel like I did. So that's when I really started noticing her absence.

The day I moved into my set trailer was the day I felt the need to call her. The trailer was nearly empty, with only a bed in the back, a tiny kitchenette, the smallest bathroom I had ever seen, and a crammed couch across from a TV I knew I would never use. The fridge was stocked with expensive beverages and snack trays. Technically the trailer was more like an RV, and I knew it was only temporary for when I was on set and needed a place to study my lines and retreat to, but I had the sudden need to call Mal and tell her everything. I wanted to tell her about how cramped it was, about how my shoulders barely fit through the doorway, and about how I hadn't even met my co-star yet. Heck, I even wanted to tell Mal about my role and how I never believed I would act in a romantic comedy, but even Zac Efron started somewhere.

Luckily my role included a little bit of action, but it also meant a few weird scenes had to be shot. I mean, the producer was very adamant that the film would be a huge hit. When I meant weird shots, though, I meant that I pretty much played a character that was some type of built, aggressive Greek god that falls in love with a mortal woman. The plot thickens because the dude is supposedly already married or has some other kind of obligations, but his love for the mortal is 'everlasting' or something.

It was all kind of uncomfortable to me, and I didn't know much about Greek mythology, but I figured I would grow into liking my role and probably even learn from it.

I just had to keep reminding myself that every actor started somewhere.

A part of me really wanted to call Mal, though, and talk about it. I didn't have anybody to talk to that would understand my struggle. I knew if I talked to my grandmother she wouldn't have much input. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure she could have offered great advice, but I was just looking for somebody that would understand the acting industry and nod while I ranted about how uncomfortable my role was so far.

Every time I picked up the phone, though, something didn't feel right and I would put it down. I guess my time with Mal had sort of come to a stop, and I knew that if I kept calling her about every little thing, we would only fall back into the same cycle we used to be in- except the next time it would include a baby, rehab, an annoying ex-bodyguard-baby-daddy, and probably more pain than ever before.

Not to mention crazy press stories.

After the third week of filming, though, I finally met my co-star. I had shot about four scenes by myself so far, most of which were me sitting around on gold thrones and flexing half-naked under starchy bedsheets that was supposed to be a toga.

I was leaving the set to take a shower in my trailer and wash off the gold oil that had been rubbed across my chest when I first met her.

She had red hair, freckles, and green eyes. The girl wasn't your typical redhead, though. I'm not talking about 'red' that is actually a shade of orange, or 'freckles' that are actually spread across her entire body. The girl had actual dark, mahogany curls with copper highlights and glimmers of brown. It all blended together so well, though, and definitely didn't look artificial.

Actually, nothing about the girl looked artificial. She was probably the closest thing to 'real' I had ever seen in this industry. I mean, sometimes the producers can really cast actresses that look nothing like an actual, real-life human woman, so I sort of expected this phenomenal chick with outrageously good looks. However, she was just… average.

It was very refreshing.

She walked straight up to me, threw her hand out, and smiled very matter-of-factly. "I'm Rachel Dare. You must be Percy Jackson."

I was sort of thrown by the interaction. It was just to the point and there was no beating around the bush. Usually people might introduce themselves by pretending not to know who I was, or by some weird, staged encounter.

Girls are weird, dude. Remind me to tell you about the time a girl spilled her entire purse just to get me to have a conversation with her.

Anyway, Rachel was pretty cool. I appreciated how honest and blunt she was. She was sort of awkwardly tall, about 5'7 to my 6'2. When we met, she was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a blouse.

"Yeah, that's me," I said, taking her hand and shaking it.

"Looks like you're the one I'll be kissing on set, huh?" Rachel said, taking me off guard again.

How weird.

"Yeah, guess so," I took my hand away from hers and rubbed the back of my neck. "We just got done shooting my Mt. Olympus scene."

"I can tell. They really got you good with the oil, huh?" She said, surprising me even more when she reached forward with her pointer finger and trailed a line through the thick, gold oil.

For the first time in a long time, I felt my ears heat up from embarrassment. Usually I was pretty confident, but she was continually taking me off guard.

All I could do was laugh.

"Yeah, I guess so. I was actually about to go wash it off…" I wiped my oily hand on the side of my toga.

"It's hot," Rachel grinned, moving her finger from my chest to my arm and trailing it down to my wrist before letting go. "Let me know if you need any help."

She winked and walked off, leaving me stunned and completely surprised by the entire interaction.

It was probably the most forward, ballsy thing that a girl had ever done to me- well, besides spilling a cup of soda on me at the airport.

Still, though. Rachel's forward attitude was welcomed. It was refreshing and new, and I would be lying if I said that I didn't go straight to the shower and replay the entire encounter over and over again in my head.

I hadn't thought much about Annabeth. I guess a part of me thought that I could pursue something with her once Mal was out of the picture, and especially since I had finally told Mal about what had happened, but something was holding me off. I was also busy with the movie and I never really got home until after dinner, then I usually had to pick up the slack with my renovations on my apartment. Before I knew it, I was falling into bed, too tired to even think about anything other than the back of my eyelids.

Usually Annabeth came to mind throughout the day, though. I would wonder about her, and try to put together why I actually had a thing for her.

I mean, was whatever we had worth pursuing? Technically we had only kissed on the plane and a bunch of drama unfolded after that with Mal. Annabeth and I didn't have much of a relationship- just a ton of sparks and a blazing fire every time she touched me.

I guess I liked her a lot, I just didn't have a reason for why. It was like our situation was more than just being attracted to each other; we had a connection. I guess I could've had a connection with anybody, though, and it would have been easy to just forget about her and move on, but my connection with Annabeth was more than that, and I could feel it. It felt more like a link, like we were being pulled together. It was like I had pictured both of us together and I couldn't let it go.

At first I just thought that I was attracted to her because she was everything I had ever wanted Mal to be- she was honest, she stuck to her beliefs, determined and committed, and she knew what she wanted out of a relationship. Annabeth had seen her parents' marriage fail and she knew what it took to make something last. I guess I was attracted to her because of the very first conversation we had- how she had been so vulnerable with me, how she told me about herself and her situation.

We had a connection, and I guess that was why I couldn't let it go.

I also couldn't pursue it, either. I was still a little weirded out by how she was my ex-girlfriend's little sister, even though the logical part of me knew that it wasn't as big of a deal as it sounded.

The two couldn't be any more different; the real similarities were only in their eyes. I mean, sure, they shared the same hair color, but even that was contrasting. Mal's hair had always been bleached blonde while Annabeth's looked like actual strands of sunlight. If you ever put them side by side, the differences were crazy. Mal's features were sharper, more pointed, and she was taller. Annabeth was softer, with curves and a rounded nose. Her smile was bigger, she was shorter, and her personality spoke louder than her words.

Another reason why I decided not to pursue her right away was how tired I was. Not physically, but mentally tired of girls. I had been in a super long relationship with Mal for what felt like forever, and the only thing I wanted was distance.

So I welcomed the movie set with opened arms.

I was supplied with a physical trainer. The guy was built like a tank, with rippling arm muscles, a barrel chest, dark skin, and a bald head. He was an ex-marine, super tough, and his voice carried loudly across the private gym when he yelled at me to push myself. His name was Hephaestus, but he only allowed me to call him Heph.

He scared the shit out of me, but he wrote out diet plans for me and all sorts of work out checklists for me to complete. Heph could always tell when I didn't complete the work out, too, and I would pay for it when I returned to his gym.

~oOo~

We had just wrapped up a scene between my character and Rachel's when the director dismissed us for the day.

"It's a Friday afternoon, find something to do," He said, "We'll pick up on Monday. I don't want to see any of you on set for the rest of the weekend- we all need a break."

It was a good thing to hear, too. We had been going at it for hours and my eyes were getting heavy. I yawned and tried to cover my mouth.

"You look like you need a nap," Rachel's voice broke through my yawn. I saw her leaning her hip against the set piece next to me. "Are you headed to bed? If so, can I join?"

I studied her face. I was never sure with her- was she joking? We had many conversations on the set, and most of the time she was straight forward with what she wanted or how she wanted things done, but I could never tell when she made comments like that if she was messing with me.

"I'm probably going to head home and work some more on the renovations," I shrugged, "As soon as I get out of this toga."

"Well, if you decide to use your off time to actually do something fun," Rachel crossed her arms over her chest, "I'm heading out to this club tonight. It's a little ways out of town, though, so you'd have to give me a heads up if you wanted to come along."

I thought about it. "What kind of club is it?"

"What do you mean, 'what kind of club is it?' The drinking kind, dude." She rolled her eyes at me, "The dancing kind, the grinding kind."

I thought about it. I hadn't been out in so long; it just wasn't really safe with the press being literally everywhere.

"Who else is going?" I asked her, wondering who else may attract attention.

"Does it matter?" One of her red eyebrows rose. She leaned forward and placed her hand on my shoulder, not even having to stand on her tiptoes to whisper into my ear. "I'll be there… isn't that enough company for you?"

If I hadn't been completely shaved for this new role, I'm sure the hair on my arms would have stood up. I placed a hand on her hip to hold her back from my body just a bit; she was getting super close for comfort, and my body was reacting to her words.

"Should I pick you up?" I asked her. "I can drive."

"Good," She backed away, giving me much needed air. Her voice lowered and she whispered, "I'll ride."

I cursed under my breath.

~oOo~

That night I was running late. Rachel had texted me a picture of her wrist, a watch resting on her pale and creamy skin. I took that as meaning that she was ready for me to pick her up.

It seemed like something she would do, anyway.

As I looked around my mess of a bedroom for my shoes, I questioned what I was even doing. The part of me that actually wanted to go was craving a night out, time away from working on the apartment, and a distraction from the mess that went down with Mal. A small part of me even wanted to know more about Rachel Dare; she turned me on, made me laugh, and made me feel like I was stumbling through some kind of kaleidoscope of an alternate universe. I felt like the world was spinning when it came to her because I never could tell if she was joking or actually hitting on me.

Some people may even call her advances too forward, but I found it to be refreshing to meet somebody who was ballsy enough to go for what they wanted. And hell, if she _was_ joking, that was confusing, but it was still something new to experience.

I tugged my shoes on and began to look around for my good hoodie.

Normally I wouldn't really care that I couldn't find it, but I considered it my "lucky hoodie." It may sound silly, but it was one of my favorites and I loved to wear it out.

Besides, if it made me feel more comfortable in a weird situation like being at a club with my awkward co-star, I was definitely going to need it.

Another message on my phone dinged, and I looked at it to see that it was Rachel again. She said that it was raining and gave me directions to pull under her house's awning so she wouldn't get wet.

"Shit," I growled when I had emptied my entire dirty laundry basket out, looked through every hanger in my closet, and through the three duffle bags I swapped out to take to the set each day and still wasn't able to find it.

I tried to picture the last time I had worn it and finally realized where it was.

I had last worn it when I found Mal in her bathroom weeks ago, and I had taken it off or something at her house.

I scooped up my phone to call Annabeth. I figured that I would ask her if it was there, but my finger hovered uncertainly over her name in my contact list.

Would that be weird? Would I have to awkwardly invite her to come along?

I felt my stomach flop at the thought of talking to her again. It was half nerves and half… something else.

A third message from Rachel was a pin dropped from her location.

"Dammit," I muttered under my breath.

I would have to just go and get the hoodie from the Chase house; there was always the chance that she wouldn't even be home, with it being a Friday night or whatever, and if I was lucky I would just run into Matthew or Bobby.

Deciding to take my chances and to just go to the house, I locked up the apartment and ducked into the heavy rain to run to my car.

 **Some of you have been asking for the original story, too. I just can't decide if it's worth posting or not... I wouldn't want any of you to abandon this one for the old copy, you know? Still, I sort of want to repost it since I've recently found the complete original copy (spoiler: it's definitely a huge contrast from this one).**

 **Drop a review with what you think.**


	9. Sometimes Your Date Gets Interrupted

Sometimes Things End Right

Chapter 9

Annabeth

"I'm really excited for mini golf," Will grinned when I opened the front passenger seat of his sleek black car. It was a sports car, a brand that I barely recognized- Audi or something- I was never really into cars.

I slid into the front seat, smoothing the skirt of the sundress I wore down on my legs. "Me too," I peeked out the door before closing it shut, "It kind of looks like it's going to rain, though."

Will leaned forward and looked out of the dashboard windshield. I watched him squint his blue eyes, "Ah, I think it's kind of far off."

"Maybe," I murmured, fidgeting with the hem of my dress.

Was it stupid to wear a dress?

Probably. It was almost October.

Still, though, the black sundress was one of the only things that I could find to wear, and Thalia wasn't much help with helping me pick something out. We had even raided Mal's outrageously huge closet- nothing really fit me, though, because she was slimmer than a 2x4 wooden board.

Her makeup, though, was priceless. There was so much of it, and almost every day there were more boxes of different name brands coming through the mail. It was as if the companies wanted Mal to wear it just to claim that she was using their product- which was probably their aim. It was easy for me to swipe a lot of what I would actually use from her stash- there were so many boxes piling up that I was sure she would never even notice if it went missing. Thalia even took some, claiming that even though she 'didn't know how to use makeup,' the eyeliner was her perfect match.

I used Mal's hair products, smoothing my hair into a fine, straight hair do. I hadn't straightened my hair since I was in middle school, but after I was finished with the hour and a half that it took me to flatten my curly mane, the straightener worked like magic.

 _Shit, if I had known my appearance would improve by a thousand, I maybe would have considered moving into my father's house years ago._

 _Maybe._

So I felt pretty, but I was uncomfortable in the dress. I just wished that I had worn my blue jeans and a tank top or something.

"You look great," Will said, pulling out of the long driveway. "Your hair looks nice, too."

"Thanks," I reached up and touched the blonde locks. "I used my sister's straightener."

"Your sister?" Will's car slowed to a stop in front of the security box. I told him the exit numbers and the gate swung open. "Like, Mal?"

"Yeah," I said, feeling a little uncomfortable. I didn't want to talk about her, but it was my fault for bringing her up.

"Is it weird?" He asked, "Having a famous sister?"

"Sort of," I shrugged.

Will was silent, waiting for me to elaborate.

I sighed, "I mean, yeah, it's kind of weird, but I don't think the public has really caught on too much. I don't get followed by the press or anything. I think it's because I was never photographed with her or anything; the public probably doesn't know I exist."

"That's good then, right?" Will said, keeping his eyes on the road. "You don't really want a bunch of random people snapping pictures of you all the time."

"Yeah," I agreed, "It's nice, I guess. I like going to class without a bodyguard following me everywhere."

"You guys have bodyguards?" He asked. "I mean, I kind of assumed your sister did or whatever…"

"We have two that stay at the house," I answered, "They're around-the-clock. There's a security guard at the gates to our house, too. I'm not for sure, but I'm kind of certain that there's a surveillance guard that watches our house cameras, too."

Will whistled lowly. "There's cameras around your house?"

I nodded, "I think there was some issue with some crazy stalker fans or something when Mal was, like, fifteen. Then there was that thing with that celebrity, uh, Juniper Wood that time? You know, how that crazy guy broke in and was living in her attic and selling her stuff on eBay or something? Anyway, after that, my dad decided Mal needed protection."

"Geeze," Will laughed uncomfortably. "Yeah, I guess it's better safe than sorry."

"For sure," I agreed. I tried to think of another subject to change the conversation. "So, tell me about something you're into- besides your family and school."

He pulled into the parking lot of the mini golf course and put the car in park.

"Ah," Will pretended to think, "I shot for the archery team in high school."

I raised my eyebrows. "What? That's really cool, Will!"

He laughed and opened his car door, sliding out of the vehicle in one swift movement. I watched through the window as he walked around the car and opened my door. "I wasn't as good as my brothers. I mean, our dad taught us how to shoot but I was always better at biology and stuff."

"Your dad is a doctor, right?" I asked, walking beside him as we made our way to the ticket box. There was a long line to get in, which wasn't surprising for a Friday night.

"Yep," Will nodded, "He has his own private practice he shares with my oldest brother."

"The one whose wife is pregnant," I remembered. "Michael."

"That's the one," He said, seemingly happy that I remembered. "And then there's Lee…"

"He's the one that just got into the army med school," I said, picturing the photo Will had pulled up on his phone a few days ago when he was showing me his family. His oldest brother, Michael, looked more like him than Lee did. All three brothers shared a bright, sunny smile and soothing blue eyes, but only Michael and Will had curling blonde hair. Lee's head was almost bald, shaved close to his scalp. While Michael and Will both had lean, runners' bodies, Lee looked more built and mostly looked aggressive in his pictures.

Then again, he was in the army.

"I'm surprised you remember all this," Will said sheepishly, "I know I can go on and on about my family…"

"You just really like them," I shrugged, "There's nothing wrong with that."

"Still," He said, "If it ever gets to be too much, just let me know."

"Tell me more about your little sister," I asked, noticing the clouds in the sky were getting dark grey. We were almost to the front of the ticket line at this point and the people around us were murmuring and looking up at the angry clouds.

"Georgina is a mess," Will shook his head, "Like I told you, we call her Georgia mostly, but Lee always likes to aggravate her and call her Curious George. She's eleven and she's really into chemistry right now."

"Chemistry?" I raised my eyebrows. "What kind of eleven year old is into chemistry?"

Will laughed and rolled his eyes, "Well, technically she's really only into making slime, but when I call home Dad only refers to it as chemistry."

I laughed hard at that one. "Sounds like your dad is pretty prestigious."

"I mean, he knows how to have fun," Will kind of shrugged. "He likes to take the family on a new adventure every summer for vacation. This past summer we went to Cozumel… I think that's when my mom conceived."

I tried not to wrinkle my nose at that comment. Will felt oddly comfortable with the subject of his mom conceiving another child.

Just then I felt a rain drop hit my nose. I looked up at the sky and the drops started falling faster.

"Oh, crap," Will said, looking up, too. "It's going to start pouring soon."

I threw my arms up over my head in an attempt to cover my freshly straightened hair. "Oh my gosh!"

The rain started to pour harder and he reached forward to grab my hand. "Okay, we're going to make a run for it back to the car!"

I nodded, my hand feeling tingly in his. "Okay… ready, set- GO!"

We took off running along with most of the other people in line. A few scattered under the awning of the ticket booth, leaving their dates to retrieve the car. As we ran, the bottom really fell out and I could feel my clothes soaking.

When we finally made it to the car, I let go of his hand and ran around to my door, tugging on the handle to get it open.

"Will, open the door!" I cried out laughing, pulling on the handle. "It's locked!"

"Shit," He laughed back, patting his pockets for his keys. When he finally retrieved them he unlocked the door and I ducked inside to safety.

We both laughed until we couldn't breathe, and then when our breathing finally slowed down, we made eye contact and started up all over again.

Being with Will felt freeing.

"I'm sorry," He laughed, leaning close to me. "Your hair is soaked!"

I looked down at my hair and picked up a couple of strands. It was already curling up into mini spirals. He reached out and took a spiral in his hand, stroking it softly.

"I spent so long on it," I sighed.

"I like it better natural, anyway," Will grinned.

I felt my face heat up. I had to look away so he wouldn't notice me blushing.

"I should've checked the weather," He apologized, "I'm sorry about that."

"It's alright," I said as he backed the car out of the parking lot. His windshield wipers were working overtime against the pouring rain. "It will be a funny story, anyway."

As he drove me back to my house we continued to talk more about his family. It was one of his favorite subjects and he could go on and on about it. Lucky for him, I liked to hear his voice, and I didn't mind hearing about his family. His eyes lit up when he talked about them and I enjoyed hearing him talk about stuff he was passionate about.

We stopped in my driveway, the same spot that he picked me up, and the conversation died down.

"Would you want to come in?" I asked, looking past the rain outside of the window and at my house.

"I'm really wet," Will looked down at his dark wash jeans. His red polo was stuck to his chest. "I would probably get your house all wet."

"I got your car all wet," I pointed out, pulling at my wet dress to prove my point. "Come on, you'll be fine."

"If you're sure," He said, pushing his door open. He followed me inside, standing behind me in the doorway of my front door with his hands in his pockets.

I unlocked the door and let us in, calling out to see if anybody was home.

"Matthew? Bobby?" I called up the stairs. There was no response.

"Who is that?" Will asked politely.

"Um, my dad's fiancée's sons," I replied. I still wasn't certain if they were my half-brothers; I had been too chicken to ask. Instead, I just referred to them as Sav's sons, but in my head they were basically my brothers. I mean, our parents were going to be married soon, anyway. It was just weird for me to call them that out loud.

I peeked in the surveillance office and saw that the desks were empty. "Travis?" I called, wondering where everybody was. I assumed he was in his part of the house, which I had never seen and didn't really have an interest in discovering. His new partner, Conner, was nowhere to be found, either.

"Travis?" Will questioned, obviously curious again.

"One of the bodyguards," I explained, "It looks like they're gone, though. I assume they're off for the night- or with Sav somewhere."

Will nodded, "Do they usually do that?"

"I mean, sometimes," I shrugged, beginning to climb the stairs, "They live around here somewhere. The house is so dang big that I haven't even explored the whole thing- I don't know where exactly they stay, so they could be in their rooms. The guard at the gate box was there, though, so it's not like the house is ever completely without protection."

Will followed me up the stairs, his feet making heavy footsteps behind me.

"This is my room," I pushed the door open and waved my hand to the inside.

Luckily I had made the bed that morning. Sure, the family had a cleaning crew, but I preferred to do it all myself- I had grown up in my mother's house cleaning my own room, so it was more of a habit to do it myself now. Still, the cleaners had vacuumed and straightened up the pillows on my couch and everything.

Honestly, the room was a lot bigger than I had expected it to be. Originally I had been staying in Mal's room on her couch until my room was set up, but that was when I had first arrived. Now I had my own room, and it was big enough for two couches, a coffee table, a television, two dressers, a closet, a desk… well, you get the point. The room was huge, and I usually only spent time in the room on the bed or using my laptop on the couch. The TV was rarely used.

"You can sit on the couch," I offered, walking further into the room. "I don't care if you get it wet."

"Are you sure?" He walked over to the couch uncertainly.

"Yeah, for sure," I nodded, "I swear I don't mind."

"I'm almost dry, anyway," Will said, patting his legs and taking a seat. "The car's AC half way froze me to death."

I rubbed my arms at the thought of it. I decided not to change into dry clothes, though, because if Will had to sit in his damp ones, so should I.

"You can come sit with me," He patted the seat next to him. "I don't bite."

I smiled and sat next to him. "We can watch something on TV if you want."

"Whatever you'd like," Will said politely.

I briefly wondered if we were ever going to get past the polite stage. I wanted to bypass it so bad; I was looking forward to being comfortable enough with him that I never really had to beat around the bush. Will was naturally friendly, though, and it seemed like everything he did was polite.

I turned the TV on, not really sure how to use the remote. Will must have noticed, too, because he offered to do it for me.

Before long, he had a movie from Netflix playing.

"I love _Killers_ ," He grinned, "This is one of my favorite movies."

"I have had a crush on Ashton Kutcher since I grew up watching _That 70's Show_ ," I confessed, relaxing back into the couch.

"Well, crap," Will said dramatically, "I definitely can't compare to Ashton Kutcher."

I laughed and turned to him, "Why would you need to compare to Ashton Kutcher?"

"If Ashton Kutcher is your type, I don't fall into that category," He waved his hand at the TV screen. "I'll never get you to have a crush on _me_."

I bit my lip.

 _Was he serious?_

 _He's so freaking hot- like, way cuter and much nicer than Ashton Kutcher._

And Jesus, his smile- he practically made me melt into a puddle every time he flashed me with it.

"You don't have to look like Ashton Kutcher for me to have a crush on you," I giggled, leaning my head against his shoulder, "I've already got one."

I felt his body turn to face me. "Is that so?"

I faced him, too, bringing a knee up between us. "You make me feel like I'm a teenager again."

"Is that good or bad?" Will played with one of my curls.

Instead of answering him, I leaned forward and kissed him.

It was pretty bold of me, honestly, and I halfway couldn't believe I actually did it.

I mean, I'm really glad I did, because his lips were super soft and almost perfect, but I still surprised myself. He made me feel like a shy little girl when I was around him, and I stuttered more than I ever had before. Everything about him made me feel like I was having a school girl crush, so when I jumped at the chance to kiss him, I alarmed myself.

However, the alarm quickly melted away when he kissed me back.

His fingers that were playing with my curls shifted to my neck, pulling me closer to him. My knee was still between us, though, which was a tad bit uncomfortable, but I hardly noticed.

I swung my leg over his lap, straddling him. I didn't slow down long enough to even put thought to _that_ \- if I had, I probably would have been too embarrassed to continue.

Instead, I tangled my fingers in his blonde hair and closed my eyes while he deepened the kiss. His free hand held my hip, squeezing and bunching up the fabric of my black dress. I sighed into his mouth and he took it as a green light to open his mouth to mine.

It was wildly erotic and honestly not something I had ever done on a first date. Of course, I had only been on about three first dates before, and each one had been with a previous boyfriend, but I had never progressed this fast before with anybody.

I felt his teeth nibble at my bottom lip and my tongue slipped into his mouth. I angled my head to deepen the kiss; it was a weird feeling, but definitely not something I hadn't done before. We kissed harder, his hand leaving my hair to mirror the hand on my hip.

I pulled away to breathe and his head ducked to my neck. It gave me a break to realize that one of his hands were pushing the fabric of my skirt up high enough for the hem of my underwear to be brushed by his fingertips. Honestly, though, before I could even really get into it, Will yanked his head back and his head spun to the door in alarm.

"What the hell?"

I realized somebody was standing in the doorway and I hopped up off of Will's lap.

I definitely wasn't expecting to see Percy Jackson standing there.

He looked sort of pissed off; one dark eyebrow was cocked, his mouth was set in a pursed line, and his green eyes blazed. Percy crossed his muscular arms over his chest, a piece of black fabric bunched up in one of his hands.

"Percy? What are you doing here?" I quickly straightened my dress skirt so it wasn't bunched up around my butt anymore. I was next to positive that Percy had seen my underwear. I looked back at Will, his face flaming red.

"I was picking up something," Percy shook the black fabric in his hand, walking further into the room. "Who is this?"

"Uh, I'm Will," Will stood up quickly and walked across the room to Percy, his hand held out for a handshake. "Will Solace; it's nice to meet you, dude. You're Annabeth's step brother?"

Percy stared at Will's hand without a word. It was chilling; the two were the same height, and totally different. Where Will was bright and sunny (and still damp from the rain), Percy was dark and brooding- at least, today he was.

"I'm not, actually," Percy finally took Will's hand. He gripped it hard and pumped it up and down- hard enough that I saw Will's knuckles turn white. "I'm the ex-boyfriend."

Will's eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?"

"Mal's ex-boyfriend," I interjected, stepping between the two. I had my back to Will, pushing Percy back with my palms. "My _sister's_ ex-boyfriend."

I turned around to see Will scratching his head uncomfortably.

"Right," Percy said, his eyes flicking between me and Will. He didn't offer anything else.

I wasn't sure what else to say. Was I supposed to include that yeah, Percy was my sister's ex-boyfriend, but he was also sort of my ex-I-don't-even-know-what.

Was it possible to have an ex-we-used-to-sort-of-have-feelings-for-each-other-but-never-did-anything-about-it?

Probably not.

Still, though, it was awkward as hell.

"Uh, I should probably get going," Will said uncomfortably from behind me.

"Yeah," Percy agreed at the same time that I protested.

I shot a glare at Percy.

"Will, you don't have to go," I said, reaching forward and grabbing his hand. He had started to head back to the couch we were sitting on to retrieve his phone. "Don't go,"

"Just text me tomorrow," Will said under his breath, making eye contact with me briefly before gazing back at Percy. "We'll talk later."

I followed him through the room, past Percy (who he politely said excuse me to), and to the door. "Really, you don't have to leave. I don't even know why he's here…"

"I promise, it's fine," Will said, side-hugging me. He kissed my forehead quickly before adding, "I had fun, we should hang out again sometime. I can find my way out."

Then he left, leaving me stunned.

He can find his way out?

Was that code for I-never-want-to-see-you-again? Was Will weirded out by the giant dude that just appeared in my room for no apparent reason, threatening him with his glaring eyes?

Remembering the so-called threatening dude with the glaring eyes, I turned around angrily.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I hissed, storming over to him and shoving his chest.

He was surprised by it, too; his eyes widened and I had pushed him so hard that he almost moved. He recovered quick, though, his surprised expression melting into a pissed one.

"What do you mean, am I fucking kidding you?" Percy challenged, "What the hell were you doing up here with him alone?"

My eyes widened. "You're joking, right? I'm almost twenty years old, asshole. I can be in here alone with whoever I want."

Percy's nostrils flared and his lips became dangerously thin. I watched a fire ignite in his eyes. "How long have you even known that guy?"

"Why does it matter?" I demanded, fed up with the conversation already. I pushed past him- even though there was clearly enough space in the room to avoid having to do so- and made my way to my dresser. I yanked out a change of clothes.

"Did you just meet the dude?" Percy followed behind me, his voice raising. "You probably just got back from your first date with him, huh?"

I didn't answer. He honestly didn't deserve an explanation.

Besides, who was he to come in demanding all these answers?!

"I don't understand how this concerns you," I slid a pair of shorts up my legs and under my dress.

"I just can't believe you almost fucked him on the first date," Percy scoffed.

"I didn't almost fuck him," I growled, unzipping the back of my dress. "We weren't even close to doing that."

"I still don't see how this concerns you," I said, slipping the straps of my dress off my shoulders. I didn't even care if Percy saw me in a bra; he was the least of my concerns at the moment. His eyes didn't even glance away while I yanked a dry shirt over my head. "You know, you're being a total jerk right now."

"I'm being a total jerk," Percy laughed coldly, "No, I'm really not, but I definitely _can_ be."

"No, really," I turned around, stepping out of my dress that had pooled on the floor around my ankles. "You're being a major asshole for no reason at all. Hell, I don't even know why you're _here_ right now! News flash, dude- _you don't live here_. You got your… whatever that is, now go home."

Percy's eyebrows rose again. "I don't know who you are anymore."

"You never knew who I was in the first place," I shoved his chest again. "You never bothered to _get_ to know me, Percy. It's always been about you! You, you, you."

"What the hell does that mean?" He grabbed my wrists, stopping me from continually shoving him. I struggled in his grasp to get away, even though his grip wasn't very tight. He was being gentle with me and I knew it.

"It means that ever since the day I met you, you've been a stupid jerk," I said, yanking my arms to free my wrists. "First it was about the soda I spilled on you. Then it was about you wanting to stay with Mal. After that, it was all about how you were 'doing the right thing.' I mean, damn, you even made me sit there and listen to you bitch and gripe about Mal the entire time she was in the hospital!"

"Watch your language," Percy finally let go of my wrists. He leaned down to scoop up the black fabric he had dropped in order to trap my wrists.

"Or what?" I challenged, my voice raising. "You'll send my date home? Stop bossing me around, Percy Jackson! I'm _not_ your girlfriend! You ruined that shit."

I tried to spin around angrily- and probably way too dramatically- but he stopped me by gently placing his hand on my shoulder.

To be honest, his sudden gentleness surprised me. I turned to see his eyes had gone soft.

"Wait, what?"

"You heard me," I spat, "I'm not your girlfriend, so stop bossing me around like I am. You lost the opportunity for that to _ever_ happen when you never called!"

"What? I never called?" Percy sounded genuinely confused.

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Yeah."

He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyebrows drawing together in concern. "You expected me to call you? What, after the hospital?" His voice was incredulous, as if he couldn't believe the conclusion he had come up with.

It kind of stung.

I didn't respond. I just stared him down, my arms crossed over my chest and my breathing ragged.

Was he really going to make me explain it to him? I sort of thought that we were on the same page, but I was obviously kidding myself.

"You expected me to call after the hospital," Percy's voice dropped to a whisper, as if he didn't believe it. He sighed and closed his eyes. "Jesus, Annabeth."

I glared at him still, my jaw clenching. "Well, obviously I was really freaking wrong with my expectations. No worries, though- they've been adjusted."

"Annabeth," Percy said, reaching his arm out for me. I moved out of the way, hitting him with a cold glare that clearly told him not to touch me. "I'm sorry I didn't call. I just thought… I don't know. I thought things were weird, you know?"

I didn't tell him that I also thought things were weird how we left them. Still, though, I kind of expected us to kind of pick up once Mal was out of the picture.

"I thought since Mal was gone…" I avoided Percy's eyes while I spoke, "I don't know. It was stupid."

"Annabeth, she was sent to rehabilitation," He said, his voice soft. "That's hard."

I closed my eyes, feeling like crap for ever even bringing her up.

"Right," I agreed, "And you two broke up because she's pregnant with another man's baby. Forgive me for thinking that if she could move on quickly, so could you."

I rolled my eyes and walked away from him. "Whatever, I'm done with this conversation." I added.

"Can you just hold on," Percy interjected, "I'm not done with it!"

"Well, I am," I said, using my best end-of-discussion voice. "And next time you show up at my house, you should probably send a text or something- oh, and knock before you walk into my room, please."

I left him in my room and locked myself in the bathroom, wondering what in the hell just went down.

 **Thoughts?**

 **If you guys could leave a review or a comment on where you expect this is headed, please do so! I really want to hear your thoughts.**

 **Also, I'm still considering posting the original copy...**


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